


The Hermit

by stella_maris



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: AU, Daryl Dixon is Not a Virgin, Jesus Lives (Walking Dead), M/M, Negan dies, Past Jesus/Alex, Season 6 Fix-It Fic, Slow Burn, unrequited Rickyl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21515194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stella_maris/pseuds/stella_maris
Summary: A fix-it AU in which Jesus is a hermit, hiding away from the world in a shack on the mountain. Aaron and Eric have been bringing him regular care packages in return for kung fu lessons. Negan has died horribly in mysterious circumstances, putting Simon in charge of the Saviors, which changes everything...Contains canon-typical violence, some mild drug use and a lot of bad language.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Jesus
Comments: 10
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter 1

Tangled in vines, the porch leaning at a drunk angle, half of the roof at the back stoved in where a tree had come down in a storm – it would give him shelter for the night, at least. He shoved his shoulder into the swollen front door, then gave it a swift roundhouse kick.

Inside, a dim green light battled through the windows - enough to show the rat-chewed furniture; not enough to show up the wizened corpse curled up in the closet in the bedroom, an empty bottle and a shotgun at its side. Another burst of thunder rumbled overhead and then it was all on, as a world-ending rain dumped itself on the echoing roof.

Within minutes, sheets of water thundered overhead, battering down on the rusty corrugated iron roof, pouring off of broken gutters. He'd got inside just in time. It was like Noah's flood all over again, he thought, and this time around, maybe we actually deserve it...

A search in the kitchen cabinet brought up a rusted-up frypan and a jar of white lightning - shotgun shells and gin traps; other things he didn't want to look into very closely. Breaking up old crates, stuffing in crumpled-up pages of the 'Weekly World News', he managed to build a sulky fire around the bones of something that had nested there a long while ago.

Dusting off the cobwebs, he swilled alcohol into the frypan and set fire to it; figuring the angry blue flame should kill off any germs that might be haunting the place.

A raw mouthful burned until it hit the pit of his stomach and started its own blaze. He knocked back another swig and dissolved in a helpless coughing fit that brought snot to his nose and tears to his eyes. '_Whoah...' _

He took one more mouthful and spat it into the flames, for Alex, then screwed the lid back on the jar. Tomorrow night, or the night after that. There was plenty of time.

He heated his last can of beans in the frypan, stirring it with his knife. Despite everything he'd been through that day, there was still something comforting about the combination of a crackling fire, hot food, and rain on the roof...

'_You're seriously telling me we need to snuggle for warmth? _

_'Well, Alex, according to the SAS Survival Guide...'_

It was going to be a long, miserable, uncomfortable night. He stalked over to the chewed-up recliner in the corner and shook out the moth-eaten crocheted blanket draped over it, flapping it into the shadows. Something black with a long tail shot out from the innards of the chair and disappeared into a hole in the wall.

_'Rats?! Are you kidding me?'_

_'Should probably keep our boots on, unless you want your toes chewed off in your sleep...'_

_'Do you want me to get any sleep tonight? Or not...?'_

Paul spread out the blanket on the floor and put the sleeping bag around his shoulders. He pulled out Alex's pocket edition of the _SAS Survival Guide _and bent in as close to the light as he could get. When it got too dark to read about poisonous vs non-poisonous plants and unexpected uses for condoms, he balled up his padded vest as a pillow, threw his coat over the top of the sleeping bag, and crawled into bed, just as the last red glow of the embers danced out over the walls and died out.

He lay on his back and stared up at the darkness. The rain battering on the roof hadn't let up at all. Somewhere in the walls a small animal screeched a last, defiant death screech, furiously battling some other small, furry animal.

_'Well, this is cheery.' _

_'Safer if we don't have a fire, and it's only for a few nights.'_

_'Is it?' _

Paul turned on his side. He could almost feel Alex lying there beside him, an invisible comfort, close enough to reach out and touch.

_'What if it isn't? What if...what if this is it_, _this is all that's left...rat shit and burned-down buildings, and left-behind books...?'_

_'You're such a ray of sunshine, Rovia. Go the fuck to sleep.'_

The next morning the sun rose on a saturated, rainbow-tinted world. Feeling less bruised and despairing than he had the night before, Paul crawled out of his cave and sat on the rickety wooden steps, soaking up the warmth.

If only he had a cup of coffee with him - _real_ coffee, that is - rich and dark, freshly brewed - not that stale instant crap that was all the caffeine fix you could get now, if you were lucky.

Water.

He was going to have to grab whatever containers he could find and head back to that waterfall. Get that slimy barrel cleaned out so it could collect rainwater. Get some small furry animals killed too, because his 'all-life-is-precious' days were far behind him and he was literally starving now, his stomach tightened into an angry, worrying knot. The can of beans last night hadn't been anywhere enough to shut it up.

Absorbed in his bible, weighing up cunning designs for traps and snares, he heard a plaintive _mrowling _coming out of the trees. He looked up, to see a big-boned, battered tomcat with sharp green eyes and chewed-up ears, holding a freshly-killed baby rabbit in its jaws.

'Hey...big boy – '

It dropped the gift and sat back at a safe distance to see what he would do.

He rose to his feet smoothly, doing everything he could to signal that he wasn't a threat, but the cat darted off anyway, disappearing ninja-like into the trees. Oh well.

Paul's stomach gave a loud grumble at the sight of the limp little animal in front of him, as if it was seeing it already jointed up and frying over the fire.

'Okay, okay, I get the message... baby bunny for breakfast, or nothing, right?'

He turned to Chapter 4: _Skinning and Preparing a Kill._

Daryl didn't know what to expect from a 'serious spaghetti' evening, but the smells wafting out the front door were too hard to resist and besides, there was something about Aaron - that combination of the kindly _hey, I get it, you're an outsider just like us_ and then that glint in his eye, a challenge that got under his skin. He decided to take him up on the invitation.

He knew that there had always been guys like Aaron and Eric _out there_, somewhere - New York, San Fran, LA - guys who lived together, cooked together and slept in a big bed together at night like it was no big thing. So he felt he owed it to himself to go see it with his own eyes, see if it was real.

It was real. Eric's spaghetti tasted even better than it smelled, if that was possible. Daryl wolfed it down, slurping sauce down his chin, swilling back a glass of no doubt priceless red wine.

'You're taking Daryl to meet Jesus when you go out, right?' Eric's blue eyes twinkled at him over his forkful of pasta. Daryl had no idea what that meant – there were so many little in-jokes flying around over his head it was hard to keep track – but he was taken back by Aaron's frown and Eric's sudden confusion. 'Sorry, I thought...haven't you asked him yet...?'

So it was that Daryl found himself in Aaron's basement, staring dumbly at the component parts of his dream bike, his golden girl, his ticket to ride.

'I'll get ya some rabbits,' he promised finally, feeling like it was nowhere near enough. There would never be enough rabbits to repay this. Almost as an afterthought: 'What did he mean, 'meetin' Jesus'? That some kind of joke?'

'Oh! Oh that – ' Aaron scratched the back of his neck, trying a little too hard for casual. 'Jesus was a guy we met out on a run, calls himself that, but, uh....he wants to stay under the radar and we promised him we'd honor that. So you can't say anything about him to anybody in Alexandria, you understand?

'Yeah. Of course.' That went without saying.

'I knew I could trust you.' Aaron nodded, as if making up his mind. 'Jesus...he's like a hermit, lives in the woods, traps and hunts his own food. Eric and I try to drop in on him every other Wednesday, bring him some canned stuff - instant coffee, that kind of thing. He knows martial arts, so he's been trying to train us to defend ourselves - which we desperately need to get better at - plus we like to keep an eye on him. We did our best to convince him to move to town but he wasn't having it – he's had some bad experiences with other survivors, from what I can gather. We worry about him being out there alone.'

Daryl flashed back to the half-blind mountain man - 'Ol' Man Murphy' they called him, though who the hell knew who he really was - who used to stumble into Murphy's Crossing twice a year with his flea-bitten donkey. Mumbling, laden down with jars of moonshine he sold at Annie's Saloon, and those hand-whittled animals that the sad old buzzard tried to flog off to the kids in return for smokes - Daryl remembered the kids throwing rocks and empty bottles after him, remembered calling out names. 'Stinky Squirrel-Fucker' was one, but there were worse. Much, much worse...

So yeah, he imagined that this 'Jesus' probably looked and talked and smelled much like Ol' Man Murphy's second but stinkier cousin, twice removed. Either way, dropping in on a welfare visit seemed like a small price to pay for the bike.

'Gotcha.'

'Great! As soon as your bike's ready, we'll head up the mountain to see him. If you get me a couple of those rabbits, I'll trade them with Olivia for some of her tomato chutney...and a bar of that chocolate I _know_ she has stashed away somewhere. That might just be enough to bring him round when I show up with a stranger. Hopefully.'


	2. Chapter 2

For the next week, nothing existed for Daryl but the bike. Day and night he lived and breathed gears and screws and engine parts, seeing it whole in his mind and scrambling around Aaron's carefully-labeled piles of salvage to bring it all together - gold bodywork, wonky, off-center headlight and all.

He was aware of the two men puttering around the house above him, and sometimes he joined them at the end of the day for one of Eric's home-brewed beers, but he didn't like to intrude. If Rick was surprised at his sudden friendship with Aaron and Eric he didn't say anything - he had his head full with his own distraction next door, after all.

Only Glenn and Carl and Judith seemed to be acting their usual selves here. Carol had gone full 'Stepford' with her flowery shirts and old-lady casseroles, Michonne was playing policewoman, Maggie was sucking up to Deanna like she was planning to step into her boots the minute the old lady stepped out of 'em...it was unsettling, and he didn't want any part of it. Burying himself in the basement was a welcome escape from the weirdness.

Now, finally, here they were. The bike had actually made it, all the way up the mountain to a deserted car park and lookout with a spectacular view over the ruined landscape. Aaron's clunker of a car had pulled over, and at last he could kill the engine and stretch his back. It was a beautiful day, the sky a pure, hard blue, the sun burning off mist from the rain-soaked forest. Even the haze that usually hung in the middle air from the endless fires smouldering in DC seemed to have evaporated.

He hobbled over to a 'You Are Here' map speckled with bird-shit, next to a signboard proclaiming_ No dogs! No hunting! No fires!_ \- all those uptight little rules that meant nothing, now there was no-one around to read them. The sun-bleached map was more helpful. They were about half an hour's walk away from something called the Bridal Veil Falls, and right up the top of the mountain was a ranger's cabin and a place called Lookout Lodge. He hoped to hell that wasn't where this outcast loser had chosen to hole up

He turned away from the 'view' down below to watch Aaron - curls plastered to his skull, a 'V' of sweat down his back, grunting cursewords as he dragged branches and vines over the roof of his car. Like that was going to fool anyone.

'Y'ain't got nothin' to worry about there.'

'I know, but we don't want anyone to know we're here, just in case...you know.'

'Just in case what?'

'He doesn't want anyone to know he's up there, that's all.'

'Like anyone gives a crap anymore about a loner livin' out in the woods? He got a price on his head, or something?'

Aaron sighed, shaking his head, but Daryl could tell there was more going on here than he was willing to let on about.

'He's just had some bad experiences. Like we all have. I don't know the half of your group's story, but I know enough to know you're good people and so is he. Now, are you going to hide your best girl in the bushes so we can get going?'

He hauled on a backpack, settling the straps on his shoulders – looking for all the world like a Suburban Dad about to set off on a little day trip.

'Whatever.'

Figuring it wouldn't hurt, Daryl made a lame-ass attempt; dragged his bike into a ditch and pulled some kudzu over.

'He's gonna be real happy when you show up with me then, ain't he? How much of a hike to get there?'

'There's a waterfall just up the track, used to be a tourist attraction.' Aaron swiped a forearm over his face, leaving a smudge of dirt on his forehead. It made him look a little more like the badass Daryl knew he was - deep, deep down, anyway. 'His hut's down in a hollow in the woods, a little way after that, by a natural spring. Old moonshiner's shack back in the day - they're always built by a natural water source...but...' Aaron glanced apologetically at Daryl. 'I'm guessing you already knew that? Not that I'm throwing around objectionable, worn-out stereotypes, or anything...'

Daryl didn't mind being riled about it, for once, but just to reinforce the _stereotype_ he spat a big gob of spit into the dust.

'Mmmhmm, us Dixons started cookin' up white lighting soon as we got here, from whatever swamp we crawled out of back in the old country...famous for it too, least, in Murphy's Crossing.'

'That right?'

'Ol' man used to make me drink the stuff with him, when he'd had a few. That was after my Momma died, we moved back to the old place...cant've been more'n twelve? Made me sing and tell dirty jokes for him, since we didn't have no TV...' He caught the pity in Aaron's eyes and wanted to bite off his tongue. 'Sorry. Dunno why I brought that up, only just remembered it now. That part of it sucked.'

Aaron's face twisted in disgust. 'My mother used to force-feed me all sorts of concoctions to try and 'make a man out of me,' but it never occurred to her to feed me _raw spirits_. Thank God. That's barbaric.'

'Ain't been much of a drinker since then, tell ya the truth. Probably did me a favor, in his own special, fucked-up way.'

'Hmmm...'

Wrapped in their own thoughts, they said nothing else for the rest of the climb.

Daryl heard the waterfall long before he saw it. The track had been professionally maintained once upon a time, but now it was slippery and overgrown, falling away into tangled trees that were barely clinging on by their roots to the steep drop below. He followed Aaron religiously, watching his feet. They rounded a corner and found themselves facing an echoing grotto, once carefully fenced off for the benefit of dumbasses, now curtained by vines and bushes. A pure veil of white tumbled over a mossy cliff into a deep pool.

Below them, a young man with long brown hair and a beard was standing on a rock, naked, eyes closed in bliss as the water thundered down on his head.

Aaron tugged at Daryl's arm. Ears ringing, Daryl followed, blindly. Away from the echoing water, up the remainder of the path, waiting until they were safely out of earshot before asking the obvious question.

'So that was 'Jesus,' back there?'

'Probably didn't expect us to show up this early.' Aaron looked as embarrassed as Daryl felt. 'Why, were you expecting something else?'

'You said 'hermit', so I thought...' Daryl floundered hopelessly, his face reddening. 'Homeless guy, y'know, older - bigger beard...?'

Aaron flicked Daryl a guilty look. He was _enjoying_ this, Daryl realized, his face still hot, the back of his neck prickling. Before he could follow the alarming thought any further, Aaron turned on his heel and carried on up the path. Daryl caught something that sounded like: '...he has the most _dreamy_ eyes...Eric and I can't agree if they're blue or green...hurry up, it's not far now, he won't want us to know we saw him, come on.'

'Huh.' Despite his embarrassment and his annoyance, and his aching back, Daryl was impressed.

The moonshiner's shack, down in its sun-drenched holler, looked a lot like the one he'd been born in. The one they all went back to. Just a bit more broken down and grown over, was all. Still liveable though, and surrounded by things that suggested someone had moved in. There were skins drying on racks – possums and rabbits, mostly - even vegetables and herbs growing in containers. Smoke spiraled out of the tumbledown chimney and the smell of slow-cooking stew floated out of the doorway.

They scrambled down the bank. Aaron sank down gratefully on the porch and shrugged off the pack. He took things out and arranged them in tidy piles beside him: chocolate, jars of preserves, books, a couple of CDs, batteries, toothpaste, and matches. 'He asked me to get him anything I could find by The Jesus and Mary Chain and The Smashing Pumpkins – so I managed to scrounge _these_ off Spencer in return for some of Eric's home brew. Oh...' He held up an antique-looking book, peering at the cover. '...and the 'Collected Stories and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe' - 1998 called, Jesus; you need to renew your emo card...'

Daryl had no clue what he was talking about, but he was getting used to that. They heard an off-key voice coming up the path towards them:

_'Joy to the world, _ _all you boys and girls...' _

It was the sound of someone in an excellent mood who believed there was absolutely no-one around in the world to hear him belting his heart out:

_'Joy to the fishes in the...'_

Aaron scrambled to his feet, his hands in the air. Daryl stayed exactly where he was.

A pair of boots in one hand, a dead rabbit in the other; Jesus appeared over the top of the hollow. He was dressed in a loose white shirt and cargo pants that stuck in patches to his still-damp body, his hair tied up in a knot at the top of his head.

Daryl didn't know where to look, so he settled for glaring at Aaron, as if this was all his fault. Which it was.

'Who the fuck is this, Aaron?'

'This is Daryl, he's a good man, Paul, I swear - he's Eric's replacement.'

'You _replaced Eric?_'' The man jumped the few long steps down into the hollow, surefooted as a bobcat.

'He's out of action with a sprained ankle and I don't want him going out again. But Daryl's the right man for the job. '

'You brought a guy called _Daryl_ to the only place in the world I feel safe anymore?' He hurled the dead rabbit onto the porch, narrowly missing Daryl's head in the process. Aaron walked out to meet him, his hands stretched out as if to ward off an attack.

'I trust him, Paul. I found his group a couple of weeks ago on the road, starving and dehydrated, and we took them in. Deanna interviewed them all. They're integrating really well into the community, they're a productive group. And they're fighters - they're tough, they're what we've been waiting for...'

The other man glared daggers at Daryl, who glared right back. He had to admit Aaron was right - the man had freakishly gorgeous, blue-green eyes, and he did look a hell of a lot like Bible Jesus.

'Come inside.' Paul aka 'Jesus' grabbed Aaron by the arm and dragged him over the threshold, slamming the door shut in Daryl's face. He heard something fragile smash against a wall.

'_You had _no right!_ You promised me you'd never tell anyone about this place, and now you come here with some redneck biker trash..._'

Daryl had his pride. Taking a strategic stroll around the side of the shack, he checked out the dried skins and collection of traps and snares in what passed for the back yard. A tumbledown shed housed a decent (disused) copper still, a clean rain barrel was full of drinking water, there was a firepit, and a bunch of random veges in a more-or-less weeded garden. A marijuana patch flourished off to the side in a sunny corner.

Well, it figured that even 'Jesus' had to pass the long, lonely nights somehow, and it wasn't like anyone had to worry about the cops showing up anymore...Daryl wheeled around in surprise as something brushed against his calf. An arthritic old cat had emerged from nowhere and was twining slowly around his ankles.

'Hey, buddy – you shacked up with that prick back there, did ya? Least one of ya's got some _manners_...'

He scratched its battered ears and the big gray tom flopped over, purring. Daryl crouched down and gave him what he obviously wanted, a back rub. The sun beamed down onto his leather-clad back and birds twittered happily overhead. Pity I didn't find this place first, he thought. Nice and peaceful, good huntin', no people, no drama...

The shouting in the cabin stopped, followed by an ominous silence. Daryl straightened up and prowled warily back around, just in time to see Aaron and Jesus burst out of the door onto the grassy area in front. Aaron had his fists braced in front of him, his legs spread and rooted to the ground. Quick as lightning, Jesus whipped a leg around Aaron's ankle and the man crashed onto his back, winded.

The look they shared between them was so deadly it could have powered half of Washington. Jesus wasn't fucking around, and clearly, neither was Aaron.

'Get up, you spineless diplomat! Is this all you've got? Hiding behind walls with some washed-up _congresswoman_? Bringing in the _Hells Angels_ to do your dirty work?'

Aaron leapt to his feet with surprising agility and they faced each other again. A fist flew out but Jesus blocked it, spun around like a dancer and once again Aaron was on his back.

'You're hiding behind her skirts like you always hid behind your mother's – face it, you're nothing but a _mama's boy_, Aaron...'

Aaron roared out something loud and untranslatable and kicked out, strategically, at Jesus' groin. It was a kick that could have taken out a six-foot bouncer, but the other man ducked it easily, whirling about to grab Aaron by the shoulders and spin him around, holding him away from him in a choke hold. He whispered something in Aaron's ear that made his face turn purple.

Aaron kicked back at Jesus' shin but he ducked away, spinning Aaron around and landing him on his back again. This time Aaron was prepared. He curled into a ball and jumped to his feet, chest heaving, fists raised in the defensive position.

Daryl lit a cigarette and stretched his legs out on the porch. The cat bumped against his arm and he continued to rub its ears as they watched the two men circle and grapple, getting muddier and more riled-up with every turn. It was the best entertainment he'd had in a long time. 

'Daryl, right?'

Grass-stained, sweaty, his sleeves rolled up, 'Jesus' emerged from the depths of his cave and handed his guest a mason jar filled to the brim with a watery stew...soup, whatever - it smelled amazing anyway. and Daryl's mouth was watering. Apparently he had been forgiven for showing up uninvited. For now.

'Thanks, man.' Whipping out his shop rag, he took the hot jar and blew off the steam, pulled out his buck knife and stabbed at a tender chunk of meat, watching it steam on the end of the knife before chowing down. Not bad. Not rabbit, either – tasted more like possum, but jazzed up with herbs and stewed long enough to make it tastier than possum had any right to be.

He licked his lips and met the other man's eyes, warily. 'Takes a lot of know-how to make roadkill come out this good.' He poked at another piece of meat. 'Daryl Dixon, that's me.'

Jesus ignored the backhanded compliment. 'Aaron said your group came up from Atlanta, that right?'

'We all met up there, after...it's kind of a long story.'

'I don't doubt it - but what was it exactly that made you travel up here across two states? And how the hell did you make it this far in this, anyway? You own a private plane or something?'

Daryl snorted, shaking his head. 'Wouldn't believe me, even if I could explain the half of it. Ain't no dinner party story, believe me.'

Jesus grimaced, picked out a piece of meat with his own knife. 'More like a Donner Party story, right?'

'Huh...'

'Look, Daryl - not to sound pathetic, but most of the time up here I'm just talking to my cat, and I've heard all his stories, so...' He shrugged. The cat had been given his own raw meal and was now watching the rest of the proceedings with intent concentration. 'Try me?'

'Mmmphh...' Daryl swigged back some broth. It was tasty enough but his appetite had evaporated. He set the jar down on the porch. 'Bad shit happened and we had to leave town, is all.'

He wasn't going to try to explain Terminus while they were eating, or ever. There were some things better left buried back in Georgia. 'We had a kid with us from Richmond, he wanted to get home to his folks, to this walled-up community they were living in, so we set out in a van going north...thought it might be somewhere safe for the kids.'

He took a deep breath. He hadn't seen Shirewilt himself but he'd heard all about it, from Rick and Michonne and Glenn, seen the horror in their eyes. Filled in the stuff they didn't say. 'But it turned out his home, the place they'd set up, it'd all been wiped out by assholes with machetes and a real sick sense of humor...liked to carve 'W's in people's foreheads, rearrange their body parts, psycho shit like that. Fuckin' monsters...'

Triggered by the sudden heavy silence, he added: 'You come across anything like that yourself, maybe?'

Jesus looked like he'd also lost his appetite.

'Small world, huh?'

'You're saying you've met this group yourself?' Aaron spoke for the first time. Jesus – Paul – turned to look at him, a look Daryl was glad he wasn't on the other end of.

'Do you really think I'd be here talking to you, if I had?'

Daryl looked at Aaron, and Aaron nodded. 'I gotta ask, man. These assholes – did they...?'

Jesus took a deep breath. 'I was out scavenging at the time, so I kind of missed the 'meet and greet'.'

'Don't have to talk about it if you ...y'know. If you don't wanna.'

'I know that.' Jesus swigged back the last of his broth. 'Waste not, want not. Well, what happened was, our group had come down with a bad stomach flu, a kid and an older lady had died from fever, and we were getting scared. Someone mentioned a little strip mall with a herbal apothecary attached to it, just a few miles away. Alex figured it probably hadn't been cleaned out yet and might have some useful stuff, alternative-medicine-wise – Alex was a physical therapist, and he was right into all that natural remedy stuff. He wanted us to go check it out together, but then he came down with the bug himself, so I went on my own. Grabbed some random things that looked promising, headed back to camp, and... ' Jesus broke off, staring blankly into space, his jaw working.

'If they're still out there...Daryl and I, we need to know. We have to know what we're dealing with, in case they find their way to Alexandria.'

'Yeah, imagine that. All those plump, pampered, one-percenters, they wouldn't know what hit them...it'd be like a gang of foxes going through a chicken coop.' Jesus blinked furiously. 'Well, anyway, I came back from my run to find the group I'd been with - some of them were people I'd got out of D.C. with, others we'd picked up on the road...men, women and children....they didn't just kill them, but some were tied to trees, cut open...turned into those _things_. God knows how long they took over it, what else they'd done...and the others had been messed up, head and limbs cut off...all with the...the W's....'

Jesus' voice broke and he looked away, into the trees, his face working. His eyes blazed with banked-up, helpless rage.

'So that's how you ended up here, living on your own,' said Daryl, softly.

'I'm going to find them one day, and when I...when I do...'

'You can't go down that road. You can't take them out on your own. It's not smart, it won't work and it'll only get you killed.'

'Can't I? What else have I got to live for? They didn't just kill Alex, they cut him up in pieces...they _branded_ him, Aaron...we'd only been together a few months, but we had something, I know we did, and now...'

'I've lost people too,' put in Daryl. 'Some nights I lie awake thinkin' about how I'd do it all different if I had the chance, other times I just wanna hide under a rock like you, and never come out again...' He floundered. 'All I'm trying to say is, man, if I knew those sick fucks were still out there, still _walkin' around_...' He turned to Aaron. 'We gotta go back and tell Rick about this. Come up with a plan, send out search parties...'

'Daryl's right. We need to come for them before they come for us. And we need your help, as much as you need ours, Jesus. You can't stay here forever, you know that. Winter's coming, and you can't survive a bad snowfall here on your own. You need to come back with us. You need to start fighting back, start living in the world again...'

'He'll come around,' said Aaron breathlessly, hiking back down the path. 'He didn't mean that, he's just....he's got a lot of anger in him. A lot of trust issues.'

'No kiddin',' Daryl had seen rabid dogs with less anger and 'trust issues' going on. Whatever else this Paul Rovia was, he clearly wasn't a people person.

'It's probably the first time he's talked about it since it happened, that's all. He never told that story to Eric and I, just hinted at it. We thought he'd get around to it eventually. The thing is, Paul lost his mother when he was just a kid...some kind of gang payback, she was living with a biker who was dealing. He said he only survived because he ducked out of his bedroom window, hung onto the fire escape, can you imagine that? He's been an escape artist ever since, really. From what I gather, he just got passed around from one foster family and group home to another...'

'That why you wanted me to meet him? 'Cause we both had fucked up childhoods?'

'No! I didn't know anything about your past, I wanted you to meet him because...because...it's just...'

Panting and soaking wet, Daryl dragged his bike out of cover and swung a leg over, waiting for the other man to retrieve his vehicle and come to the point.

'I just wanted to make sure he had someone else in case anything happened to me or Eric. Plus you're an outsider, like him, but you're_ trying_, and it hasn't killed you. I just didn't expect him to be quite so violently opposed to the idea of coming back with us, meeting new people.' Aaron gave a deep sigh. 'Speaking of which?'

Daryl blinked, swiping away the stinging sweat dripping down his face. He'd completely forgotten they were supposed to be looking for new recruits and after Jesus' story, he wasn't sure any more that it was such a great idea.

'We've got the rest of the day,' Aaron was saying, his voice unconvincingly bright. 'Where do you suggest we start?'

'Hell, I dunno...' Anywhere seemed as bad as anywhere else. 'Heath said something the other day 'bout an abandoned camp he saw a while back, in a quarry just west of Alexandria?' Something about the idea didn't feel right but he didn't know what. It was like a shadow had passed over the sun. 'Guess there might be some tools and vehicles layin' around there anyway, some fuel, maybe?'

'Sounds as good as anything...let's do it.'


	3. Chapter 3

The rest of the day, in fact the rest of the next two weeks, turned out to be so insane, Daryl almost forgot about the naked hippy ninja he'd met in the woods.

Almost.

The supposedly empty quarry they went to check out that day turned out to be churning full of Walkers who'd just sort of slid off the edge and gotten trapped down there - _hundreds_ of 'em, just milling around like frustrated ants - which as Rick pointed out, explained the mystery of why Alexandria had survived as long as it had without seeing any major attacks of the undead.

Rick quickly decided that doing nothing was not an option and came up with what even he admitted was an 'insane' plan – to play the Pied Piper and lure them out of the quarry and away up the road aways, far away enough that they would never come back.

On a blazingly hot morning, sweat trickling down his back under the leather, mirages dancing in front of his eyes, Daryl sat waiting like a prize turkey at the crossroads until the flare-guns went off, signalling that the horde was on its way. He gunned his bike and cruised, achingly slow, up the road north, followed by Abe and Sasha in the car, a horde of the undead shuffling along behind them. Every second of every minute praying that they didn't break down or run out of gas, get overrun and consumed by an army of clammy, dead hands and mindless, churning jawbones.

Amazingly, insane or otherwise, the plan _worked. _The Walkers were escorted out of town, on the long road north, to become somebody else's problem, assuming there was a 'someone else' out there.

Daryl, Sasha and Abe returned to Alexandria to a hero's welcome, hugs and back-slaps all round. Rick, drunk with relief, pulled him close and planted a smacking kiss full on Daryl's lips, to a roar of laughter from everyone watching.

Before Daryl could quite process what had just happened, Rick zeroed in on Michonne, looking deep into her smiling, disbelieving eyes, holding her face in his hands. Michonne moved into the kiss, and the room broke out in hoots of applause.

Even Jessie was smiling from ear to ear, he noticed, catching her eye as she hugged her two boys close to her side. Probably quietly relieved that she'd dodged that complicated, blue-eyed, bow-legged bullet.

Thank God _that's_ over, he muttered to himself, and went out to check on his bike.

The tiny detail that the mega-herd was still out there, somewhere, and might come back one day – might in fact have become some other community's problem - assuming there were actually other groups of survivors in the area - hadn't totally escaped him, but as the weeks went on, the shadow of worry was pushed far, far out of his mind in the face of the next huge challenge facing them as a community: winter was coming on fast, and their food was running low.

One morning, not long after 'Operation Go the Fuck Away', as Abe called it, Daryl tilted his face up to the spray as he rinsed himself off in the shower – yeah, he did take them, once in a while – and found himself humming an old song, something about: _never understood a single word he said, but I helped him drink his wine..._

Even with the short rations, things were looking hopeful. Despite losing Reg to Jessie's husband, Deanna had pulled through, and was working through her grief by drawing up plans for a 'New Alexandria' - one with gardens full of food, a windmill, a blacksmith, livestock and horses, the works. All that old-timey Little House on the Prairie stuff. An actual _future_ for Carl and Lil' A., in other words, if they could make it happen fast enough - before a really bad winter hit them, before another wave of the dead came through. It wasn't going to be easy, obviously.

Dary heard of the plans at third-hand through Rick, who heard them through Michonne, who along with Maggie had become Deanna's counselor and town planner and close friend. Rick and Daryl themselves had been out on a couple of not-very-successful road trips, doing their bit, hunting and scavenging while keeping an eye out for new people and supplies. That had been fun - just the two of them in the car, laughing and sharing snacks, listening to Rick's godawful country music on the CD player...

Rick banged on the bathroom door, snapping him out of his daydreams.

'Daryl! Aaron's here, wants to talk to you. You got any idea what it's about?'

Daryl threw a towel around his waist and opened the door. Eyebrow raised, he caught the up-and-down elevator thing as Rick soaked up all the steam and the bare, damp, tattooed skin.

'Maybe?' He brushed past Rick, closer than he needed to, and stomped up the tiny staircase to his room. 'Send him up, willya? I'll get dressed.'

Daryl's 'room' was the attic of Rick and Michonne's house, empty apart from some furniture no-one wanted and a mattress on the floor under a skylight, plus a trunk that had held winter blankets and now held his few clothes and belongings. He zipped up his jeans and was about to choose a clean shirt when he heard a strangled cough coming from the doorway.

_Oh, that. Yeah, my old man didn't just make me drink hard liquor when he'd had a skinful. Liked to make me bleed and whimper and curl up in the corner like a scared dog too. But only when it was just the two of us, home alone, no Merle to step in and do somethin' stupid. Good times._

'Hey.' Daryl buttoned himself up and threw on his vest. He sat down on the mattress and pulled his boots on, figuring whatever Aaron wanted from him, it probably wasn't an indoor thing.

His stomach grumbled at him impatiently. He'd skipped breakfast this morning, after noticing how low the supplies in the kitchen cupboard really were - wondering why the hell Michonne hadn't mentioned that they were down to one half-box of stale Lucky Charms.

'What gives? How's Eric?'

'He's good, actually, getting around a lot faster now. I think he's on the mend. Well, physically, anyway...' Aaron sat down next to him.

'He'll be fine, back to his old self in no time...'

'I hope so. It's just that, after everything...' Aaron bit his lip. Daryl reflected once again on how _nice_-looking he was - in a clean-cut, Starbucks kind of way, and obviously he was taken, but Daryl had eyes.

'It's like everything's catching up, you know? It was touch and go, that thing with the herd - I think he really was preparing himself for the worst possible outcome, and now – well, he's not exactly bouncing back. He's been having nightmares every night, about unspeakably gruesome things happening to me, mainly...'

'He's _alive,_ ain't he? He's a damned sight luckier than some other poor bastards.'

'It's not that, Daryl. Eric's the strongest person I've ever met, but we all have our breaking point. He's been through some rough patches - some bad stuff happened to him when we were overseas - it's partly why we came back to the States, to be honest. But before, there was medication and therapy and now, well... now there's just _me_, you know?'

Daryl didn't know; he couldn't imagine going to a doctor just because he was having nightmares, but Eric and Aaron had come from a very different world, he knew that. He settled for grunting something vaguely sympathetic.

'Maybe he's right to be scared. Even though we got outta that, we're gonna need to stock up on food or we'll have our own Donner Party story, come winter. These folks have no idea what it's like to go without a meal for a coupla days, man - they'll start rioting when that canned soup and Spaghetti-O shit runs out, and the gun safe is right next to the pantry, if you ain't noticed.'

'I know, I know. I've been meaning to bring that up with Rick.'

'Don't worry, we were talking about it just the other night.' Daryl got to his feet and started pacing. 'Plan A is, I'm goin' out hunting every day for meat to salt up and freeze for the winter. Plan B is, we're gonna send a lot more people out scavenging. After we train 'em up to look after themselves out there, teach 'em how to hunt...I'm guessin' Rosita and Abe and Sasha can help with the scavenging and self-defense, and I'll have to be in charge of 'Huntin' and Trackin' 101 for College-Educated Idiots'....' Daryl gave a deep sigh. 'You want me to go with you and check in on your buddy, convince him to move to town and help us out, is that it?'

'Well, Jesus did say there were a lot of whitetailed deer in those woods. It used to be a protected nature reserve, actually, back in the day...'

'That right?' Daryl opened the trunk and took out his crossbow, bolts, and his knives – his buck knife and the smaller knife Beth had carried with her. 'That's handy then, ain't it.'

'Well that's one of the few good things about all this - all the wild animals are coming back. We'll be back to the old frontier days in no time!' Aaron sounded way too cheerful, like someone who'd never had to confront a big, hungry, cunning beast intent on eating him for breakfast - stare it down, cock your weapon and hope it was smart enough to get the memo. 'So far, I've spotted bobcats, deer, wild boar– I even saw a wolf when I was out one day in the woods, he was so gorgeous. We just stared at each other, like we were acknowledging something, and then he just disappeared into the trees.'

And that wasn't alarming at all. 'Damned lucky he didn't decide to eat you, you know that, don't you? Got a rifle or something?'

'I was going to drop by the pantry before we left, yes, of course.'

'Good. 'Cause boars and wolves might not be the worst thing we run into out there.'

Daryl shouldered the crossbow and thundered down the stairs, choosing not to mention that the wolf had probably caught a whiff of that Christmas-tree crap Aaron always drenched himself in, and decided he wanted his dinner to smell less sneeze-worthy, is all. He should really find a tactful way to bring that up with Aaron before they headed out.

They told Rick they were going out hunting – which they were - and took the little Hyundai up deserted backroads, avoiding roadblocks. Taking a different route this time, Aaron pulled up at the entrance to what had once been a protected national park - signposts, carpark, souvineer shop, cafe, the whole kit and caboodle. The road in was thick with fallen leaves and branches from the previous winter, a sure sign that no-one had been that way in a long time.

Ditching the car in the trees, they made their way uphill, up the remains of a track.

Daryl felt dangerously lightheaded. Hunting on an empty stomach was a bad idea, he knew that, but it couldn't be helped. His stomach growled insistently, as he lost himself in visions of the feast they were going to have back at Rick's place, tonight...

...he'd invite Aaron and Eric and Carol and Glenn and Maggie around too, light some candles, make a big occasion out of it. He could just imagine Rick's eyes glowin' at him, grinning as he bit into a big hunk of roast venison, juices running down his chin...both of them remembering that time on the road they were so hungry, they chowed down on a pack of wild dogs...

Something white and brown flashed in the dappled leaf-light and without thinking, he cocked the crossbow and squeezed. He heard the bolt thunk into the trunk of a tree.

_'Dammit.'_

'That was a deer, wasn't it?' gasped Aaron, coming up behind him as their quarry bolted uphill, smashing through trees and bushes – large and solid, fast and _alive_. Daryl scrambled through the trees after it, leaving the track and powering uphill through the undergrowth.

Branches snapping in his face, he covered the steep, tangled ground under his feet like it was nothing. He heard as well as sensed the animal thrashing through the trees a few meters ahead, caught a flash of something brown and white again, and raised his bow. Before he could take aim, Aaron's rifle exploded beside him, the crack of the shot echoing off the hills, sending a panicked chorus of birds into the sky.

Daryl collapsed into the ferns, gasping for breath. 'What the hell?! Just scared off any live animal in a fifty mile radius, got the attention of a whole buncha dead ones, too...'

Aaron collapsed down beside him, equally gutted.

''Sorry, Daryl..wasn't thinking, I just...'

'Forget it..' Daryl got to his feet and tried to get his bearings, his ears ringing. The sound of the waterfall was way below them to his right; he'd gone further uphill than he thought. 'C'mon, lets keep goin', we're nearly there. Guess I can go hunting later on my own. Let's go find Jesus.'

Putting one boot in front of the other, they began the long, killing climb up the mountain.

There was no-one home. Daryl put his shoulder to the shack door but it opened easily, sending them tumbling into the tiny room. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust.

'Looks like Jesus has company?'

'Huh?'

Daryl's gaze swept around the tiny space – a lobster bib, of all things, and some yellowing 'Weekly World News' covers pinned to the wall were the only decoration. He wasn't going to tell Aaron, but he'd basically taught himself to read with that wacky 'aliens-stole-my-baby' crap. Always kind of hoping he'd end up in there one day himself, holding up a dead _chupacabra_ or a werewolf head or something.

Happy, more innocent times, before the dead started literally walking the earth.

An empty kitchen cabinet lurked in a corner, and there were bunches of pot drying above the fireplace.

'Well, his bed was just an old sleeping bag, last time I was here, and now look. He's even got flowers.'

Aaron pushed the door open wider and gestured at the neat, double-sized pile of dried ferns, covered in an old Indian blanket, a mason jar stuffed full of wild flowers sitting on the chair beside it. A bunch of half-burned candles were ranged on the floor.

Daryl felt a churn in his stomach that wasn't hunger, or not exactly. More like regret, or something stupid like that.

'Jesus! It's Aaron! I need to talk to you!'

They walked outside and around the back, and froze. A couple of women – starved-looking, greasy-haired and dressed in rags – were standing with their hands up in front of the shed, looking terrified.

'Hey...' Daryl dropped his bow. 'Sorry, didn't mean to scare ya. Y'all friends of Jesus?'

'Ummm...' The dark haired woman shot a look at the other, younger, blonde one. A _what-the-fuck?_ look blended with sheer panic - something told Daryl these two were more than just random travelling buddies. Sisters, maybe?

'What my friend means is, are you with Paul? Young guy, long brown hair, beard...'

'Wait, are you _Aaron_?'

'Aaron, yes – and this is Daryl. We're friends of Paul's, we come up and check in every week or two, but...'

'He told us, yeah. You come from Alexandria?'

Daryl whacked Aaron hard on the arm before he could answer. 'Ain't none of your business. What about you? You look like you've been livin' rough in the woods awhile, am I right?

The blonde woman telegraphed an urgent, unspoken message at the older woman.

'Can we go inside and talk about this, please? My sister's real sick, but we heard a shot...'

The blonde girl did look a whiter shade of pale, now he noticed it. Clutching hard onto her sister's bony shoulder, she looked like she was about to pass out, in fact. Something more serious than plain starvation and heat stroke was happening here.

'That was just me, trying to hunt,' said Aaron, obviously concerned too. 'Please, come back inside...'

'I'm Sherry, and this is Tina, she's my sister. My little sister.' Sherry helped Tina down onto the bed. The young woman – Daryl figured she couldn't have been more than eighteen – lay back and closed her eyes, taking quick, shallow breaths. 'She's diabetic and we're running out of insulin, and food - so Paul and Dwight....he's my husband....they headed down to the road to see if they could hotwire somethin', drive it to Alexandria, see if your doctor could help?'

Daryl couldn't help noticing the ribs and collarbone showing above her grungy, lace-edged top. These people were starving, for real. He wasn't surprised Jesus had taken them in, he would've done the same.

'Of course.' Aaron took her arm and cleared the jar of flowers off the chair. 'Sit down, please. Can I get you something to eat?'

'We've kind of cleared this place out, since we got here day before yesterday...but there might be some oatmeal left...sorry, I really need to get her another shot now.'

Daryl didn't need to be asked twice. 'I'll go get ya some rabbits.'

'No, no, there's no time. I think we should head back with them now. How much insulin have you got with you?'

'Enough for one more day, maybe?' Sherry opened a cooler bag and pulled out a syringe, her hands shaking. 'We're trying to stretch it out, but...'

'Right, then. We leave some messages that hopefully won't mean anything to anyone except Jesus, and we head down to the car. We need to go now while she can still walk some of the way. Light a fire, Daryl, and I'll heat up some of that oatmeal.'

Tina sat slumped in the passenger seat next to Aaron, wiped out from the ordeal of staggering down the treacherous path, half-carried, half-supported by the others, in the midday heat. Sherry took the back seat next to Daryl, eyeing him warily, like a caged animal.

Daryl had always hated making small talk with strangers – or anybody - but the tense silence in the hot box of a car was unbearable. He decided Rick's Three Questions might be a good place to start, given how little they knew about their passengers – other than the fact that Jesus had taken them in after finding them starving in the woods, that is.

'So, uh...how many Walkers you killed, Sherry?'

''Walkers'?'

'Dead people. Shufflers. Roamers. Walkin' dead.'

'This some kind of competition, now?'

'Just...answer the question, would ya?'

'Dead already, aren't they?' mumbled Tina from the front seat. 'Not _alive. _I mean, whatever makes us, like, human...' Her voice was starting to slur. 'I don't know, I always sort of felt I was doing them a favor...'

'So, more'n' a dozen, then?'

'We set a whole forest of them on fire, I have no idea.' Sherry's voice was dry, expressionless and suddenly Daryl didn't feel like asking her any more questions. Everyone had a story to tell these days about some crazy-smart idea they'd come up with to kill off Walkers – but some of the ideas were a damned sight crazier than others..

An unwanted vision of Paul Rovia kicking ass and taking names on a crowd of Walkers flashed through Daryl's head. The man had been holding back with Aaron, but if he actually wanted to do some damage, he'd be a one-man killing machine...quiet, too, which was smart these days, and it wasn't like anyone could ever take his weapons off him. Easy to underestimate him as a harmless, longhaired pretty boy, until it was too late...

He tried to get back on track. 'So how many live people you killed, then?'

Sherry turned to face him. Even though she couldn't have been more than in her mid-twenties, the woman looked haunted, like an empty, burned-out house.

_Condemned_, that was the word.

'Before, or after?'

'Gotta ask, is all. We ask everybody the same three questions before we take 'em in, see if they're a fighter or ...y'know, a psychopath...'

'What a genius idea,' put in Tina, struggling to sit upright. 'Cause psychopaths are always so honest - right? Hey - why don't you throw in some questions about her favorite ice cream flavor and how she likes her coffee? 'Kill, Bang, or Marry', heard of that one? What's the third question anyway? Suspense is killing me.'

'Just tryin' to make conversation, girl. Need to keep you from passin' out, for one thing. '

'Appreciate it. But you haven't asked us the really important question yet.'

'What's that?' asked Aaron mildly, not taking his eyes off the pot-holed, rock-strewn road.

'The one about how we got away from the Saviors, dummies. Aren't you the least bit interested?'

'Not now!' There was an edge of panic in Sherry's voice. 'We'll explain everything when we get to Alexandria, I promise.'

Aaron brought the car to a grinding halt. Like a harrassed father on a family vacation he turned to face the back seat, his face grim, but determined. 'Sherry, Tina - these people you're running from, these 'Saviors' ? If they're following you? If they pose any kind of threat to our community...'

'They're not after us, I swear. I made sure they wouldn't know where we'd headed. They don't know _anything_ about Alexandria, you just have to trust me on that. Negan doesn't have any bases out here, that's why we went in this direction in the first place.'

'_Negan?_'

'_Bases?_'

Daryl and Aaron exchanged a shocked look via the rearview mirror.

'I mean, Dwight wanted to go back to the burned-out forest to get Patty, but I managed to convince him that was crazy talk, that we had to let her go. Then we found a map in a ranger's cabin, thought the wildlife reserve might be a good idea - plenty of food, berries and stuff, fish maybe, if we could catch 'em...'

Sherry wiped her face, took the water bottle Daryl handed her and drank gratefully, before passing it over to her sister. 'Which okay, the Bear Grylls thing was sort of working out for us until we lost the second lot of insulin crossing a river, then we were well and truly fucked - sorry, Teen - I didn't mean....I'm just so tired.'

'Don't have to tell us all about it now,' growled Daryl, feeling like he'd opened a whole container truck full of worms. 'This ain't the Oprah show. Can wait 'til we get you get sorted out and fed, get some sleep, cleaned up... get your sister back on her feet. We.just need to be sure you ain't gonna bring a truckload of shit down on our heads, is all.'

'Well, we don't want to risk wiping you out either, obviously - you're our only hope of getting back to some kind of normal again...' Sherry's voice broke. 'We'll pass on everything we know if you help us, that's the _deal_. Dwight's real good with maps, he's a hell of a lot smarter'n' he looks. He can explain the layout of the Sanctuary, identify all the satellite outposts for you, everything. That way if they ever find you, you'll be prepared. Maybe we can even strike first, if we're smart. But we need to get Tina to a doctor. That's my only priority right now.'

'Understood. And thank you for filling us in on all this, Sherry. I've been scouting this area for months with my boyfriend but we never stumbled across any so-called 'Saviors.' So I hope you're right about them not coming down this way.'

'Oh, are you two...?' Tina turned around woozily and looked Daryl over, genuinely puzzled. 'Sorry, I mean – you don't look like the type...'

'Not me,' snorted Daryl. 'He means Eric, his partner. I ain't...y' know.'

'Oh.'

'Just so we're clear,' said Aaron, dryly.


	4. Chapter 4

They headed into what had once been productive farmland; now reduced to crow-ravaged cornfields and weed-choked roads. Wide, unprotected vistas for miles around in other words. Aaron accelerated and took a hard right at a familiar crossroads that led to a long gravel road that traveled past a few more farms, and then they were at the turn-off to Alexandria.

A depressing scene of wrecked lawn furniture and boarded up windows greeted them as they drove through the burned-out suburb outside the walls – a reminder of the ruined lives of ordinary people with no Senator to protect them. Innocent, law-abiding taxpayers who'd probably been trucked out of here in their hundreds, to God only knew what fate awaited them in the camps. Or wherever they went.

Daryl was undecided on the existence of ghosts – he thought he'd met one once and never wanted to meet one again – but in quiet places like this it was hard not to imagine the sounds of days gone by. TVs, lawnmowers, stereos, children...

'Stop the car.' Daryl cleared his throat. He'd never been any good at making speeches. 'Thing is, I'm stickin' my neck out bringing you back here, and so's Aaron, so I want you to know that if some of these folks inside the walls look like clueless sheep to y'all, it's 'cause they are - but that's only the lazy ones that've been in here the whole time. The rest of us are a hell of a lot more dangerous than anyone you've ever met, including these 'Saviors' you're so scared of. We won't hesitate to take you out if you try _anything_, anything at all, you got it? That goes for both of you.'

'Roger that,' mumbled Tina.

'Got it. No funny business.' Sherry scanned the surroundings like a cornered animal plotting its getaway route. It must be terrifying, he thought, facing the thought of going back to live around normal people again. Trying to remember how to act, trying to ignore the stares.

'Deanna, the ol' lady, used to be a politician in DC, she's in charge here. She's the one you gotta try and impress, okay?'

'But she's probably already got your story from your husband and Jesus, might be still talking to them - meaning they even haven't set out yet,' put in Aaron diplomatically.

'I hope so.'

The gate was quiet, only a couple of Walkers twitching and lunging on the sharpened poles they'd set up around the entrance. After some debate, Abraham and Sasha let them in, but only after Eric and Michonne and Deanna came out to meet them, leading a skinny dude with floppy blonde hair, his wrists tied in front. Dwight, apparently - going on how Sherry's whole face lit up when she saw him.

No accountin' for taste, thought Daryl sourly. The man reminded him of a tweaker he used to know – scrawny, two-faced weasel, too fucking smart for his skinny, trailer-trash ass - he'd ripped the Devils off one too many times, sold them out and lived to regret it. No, Daryl didn't like the look of this Dwight character one bit.

'Our friend Jesus found them starving in the woods; they're sisters - the younger one is diabetic and she needs a doctor and some insulin, ASAP. She's not a threat, but I'll go with her, make sure she doesn't try anything...'

'That's fine, Aaron, I think I can trust your judgment,' said Deanna calmly. 'Take her to the infirmary with her sister, please. Make sure they get whatever they need, but keep an eye on them. You, Dwight, come back with me, I'm going to call over Rick and a few others. I have a feeling we have much to discuss.'

'I'm Maggie; this is Michonne.' The attractive young woman who clearly needed a good night's sleep eyed Paul coldly across the polished table. 'We're filling in for Deanna, since she's busy interviewing those two feral-lookin' women Daryl and Aaron just brought in, and the dude you brought in with you – Dwight, is that his name?'

'Dwight, Sherry and Tina, yeah.'

'So that's four extra mouths to feed - assuming you stick around too.' Maggie rubbed a hand over her eyes. 'We barely have enough to feed the regulars here, let alone take in any waifs and strays, you understand that, right?'

Paul sensed a steely authority behind the big gray eyes and turned-up nose and decided to reign in his sarcasm.

Michonne, lounging back in her vintage armchair, saying nothing, also looked like someone who could give him a run for his money. Fierce eyes glittering at him from under a mane of dreads, she radiated authority and effortless cool. The whole room was stuffed with antiques and furnishings that wouldn't have been out of place in a glossy coffee table magazine. Actual oil paintings adorned the walls and the windows and the carpets were spotless. It was surreal.

'They tell me you call yourself 'Jesus'?'

'Call me whatever you want, I'm not planning on staying here long enough to make friends. I'm just here being a good samaritan, passing on what I know about some dangerous people I ran into, then I'm heading back to my cave. Those deep thoughts about the meaning of life aren't going to ponder themselves, right? Plus, my cat will be worried sick if I stay away too long.'

'Daryl says you've been living rough in the woods for months, now.' Michonne raised an elegant, sceptical eyebrow. 'Is that true? I mean, you look like you could do with a shampoo and a hot shower, but that's just superficial, isn't it? You don't exactly come across like the Unabomber.'

'Thanks, I think. Well, Aaron and Eric _were_ bringing me regular care packages, including some wonderful sandalwood-scented body wash...wait a minute, did you say _hot shower_?'

'Your group was wiped out by the W-people, right? And now you want revenge.' It wasn't a question.

'Wouldn't anyone, under those circumstances? I don't think it's going to be easy to track them down, but when I do, my revenge will be served ice-cold, and stretched out over several days and nights, trust me. Those people are monsters.'

'I don't have any argument there. We saw what they did at this other gated community we found, Shirewilt - it was sickening. I have no problem with the concept of wiping them all out and leaving no survivors, I promise you. Do we, Maggie?'

'No - but Deanna might have something to say about it, and it'll have to go to Council. She won't want any of her people goin' after them, putting themselves at risk...and then there's these 'Saviors' Dwight talked about? Two new threats in one day, and winter's just around the corner...' The younger woman sighed, the weight of the world on her shoulders. 'Anyone who's a friend of Aaron and Eric and Daryl's is a friend of ours. I trust their judgement. You can stay as long as you need to, and if you decide to move in permanently, we wouldn't say no. Eric says you're a fighter, and Lord knows we need more fighters, more people who can go out and hunt and scavenge, and come back in one piece. Our food supplies are running dangerously low.'

'I'll think about it. Thank you, Maggie. Both of you.'

As agreed, he went straight back to Aaron and Eric's. Daryl was the only one there, frying up what smelled like mushrooms in a pan - on a state-of-the-art electric range, in a chrome and marble-topped designer kitchen. He acknowledged Paul with the briefest of sideways glances.

'They decide to keep ya on?'

'I'm staying for a couple of days, yes. How is she, anyway, Tina?' He peered into the pan. A pot of perfectly cooked brown rice was steaming on the other burner. Paul was impressed - he was incapable of cooking rice that didn't either stick to the pot or end up a gluggy mess.

'Aaron took her away to see Denise, and I went to a meetin' with Deanna and Rick and this new guy, Dwight...he told ya all about these 'Saviors', right?

'He told me enough, yeah. Sherry took their leader out with a poisoned glass of whiskey, after he tried to add Tina to his fucked-up little 'harem' - then they nabbed some insulin from the infirmary and hightailed out of there. So they've got balls, and they're not stupid, but I think we can trust them. For now, as long as we have something they need.'

'Hmmm. The girls, maybe? Dunno know about Dwight, but like you said, he's stuck with us now - I think he'll fall in line as long as we take care of his wife and sister in law. '

'Where's Aaron? And Eric?

'They're finding somewhere for the new folks to live, they'll be back later.' Daryl stirred around the contents of his pan. 'You want some 'shrooms? Better 'n' nothing. Carol found them for us in the woods – not poison, I promise. She looked 'em up in a book.'

'Just mushrooms?'

'This look like a five-star hotel to you or something? We got mushrooms on rice for lunch, or nothin'.'

'Hmmm.' Paul poked at the steaming bowl Daryl had handed him. The black, inky caps looked _SAS Survival Guide_-approved, so he decided to risk it. They weren't too bad.

'Look – I know you're all freaking out right now, but I think the chances are good the Saviors'll leave you alone over the winter - judging from what Dwight told me. They're not exceptionally bright, for one thing – white trash, good ol' boy biker types, mostly...'

'Watch your mouth, sunshine...' growled Daryl, and Paul was caught offguard by the almost-smile. The glint in his eyes.

Interesting.

'Sorry, um...what I mean is, they prefer to stick to familiar territory, so no reason for them to stumble across you, unless you intentionally bring yourselves to their attention.'

'Which we kinda did, sending that herd in their direction.'

'Yes, but that just means they could have their hands full now, and with Negan gone there's probably a scramble for control going on too, so I think time is on your side. Maybe in the spring, when you've all got your shit together, I'll come back and help you launch a first strike against them?'

They moved over to the kitchen table to finish off their meal. Daryl cleared his throat, nonchalantly chasing down stray grains of rice.

'Or maybe you could stay here over the winter?' He stared into his empty bowl, gnawing on his lower lip, a tell Paul was becoming familiar with. 'That shack ain't exactly weatherproof, man. No way you're gonna survive getting' snowed in up there - I didn't see a pair of snowshoes or a pile of wood stacked up anywhere and you ain't got fuck-all canned stuff stashed away. Ain't even got a gun, far as I can tell.' Daryl swept his gaze over Paul as if searching for a concealed weapon. 'What happens if you twist your ankle or bust an arm? How you gonna ninja yerself out of a bear attack, or....whatever?'

'I appreciate your concern, ' Paul gave Daryl a quizzical look. Was he actually worried about him? Or did he just not have a lot of faith in his survival skills? 'But I didn't survive the end of the world to wind up living in a gated community with actual white picket fences. Even if you do have hot showers. Speaking of which...?'

'Nah - we're only allowed to use 'em after dark and first thing in the morning, every other day. There's a roster. Gotta give the solar panels time to recharge.'

'Oh well. In the meantime – you want to take me on a guided tour? That should use up a good five minutes.'

After a quick, awkward tour of Alexandria in which it seemed they were checked out and giggled over by every woman they walked past, they headed over to the pantry where Paul distracted Olivia by gushing over the good old days of single-origin coffee beans and artisanal hams - whatever they were - while Daryl quietly retrieved a Glock and a pocketful of bullets from the gun safe, tucking the gun in the waistband of his pants and the bullets in his pockets. Wasn't like anyone was going to miss it, far as he could tell.

'Hey, Olivia, you got any more of that Asian stuff? Eric said he could probably do something with it, if it's just goin' to waste.'

'Are you staying with Aaron and Eric, Jesus?' Olivia beamed at her new friend. 'Oh my gosh, are you in for a treat - I'm just in awe of what that man can do. He makes the most amazing ratatouille out of canned tomatoes and his own home-grown zucchinni - and fresh basil! It's to die for, I tell you...'

That night Paul and Daryl ended up eating at Aaron and Eric's place, given that the Council were preoccupied with interviewing Dwight and Sherry, and Rick wanted Daryl to keep an eye on Jesus.

So to speak.

Eric's makeshift 'can-opener banquet' was a triumph. Even Daryl was left licking sweet, sticky, spicy sauce off his fingers afterwards.

Whether it was a side effect of their day spent apart or what, Aaron and Eric couldn't keep their eyes or their hands off of each other, sneaking lingering touches and even more lingering looks throughout the meal. After it was over they went to bed embarrassingly, or perhaps mercifully, early - leaving Daryl alone with Paul.

He told himself he needed to get home, though every time he thought 'home' now, he just saw Rick and Michonne canoodling on their couch and pretending to watch the baby monitor, while Carl snuck off somewhere to catch up with Enid.

Being the third wheel sucked, he had to admit. Even back in the day with Merle he'd always been the odd one out, the sadass nursing a warm beer on the couch while his brother got his rocks off in the bedroom...not that he was interested in shacking up with some barroom floozy, but sometimes it was hard not to feel he was missing out on something.

Mellow, vintage blues snaked out of the speakers, and he tried to focus on the music. He'd over-indulged in Eric's homegrown before the meal – yeah, it turned out that Eric grew a little bit of weed along with his other herbs - and now he felt disjointed and dreamy, his brain staggering down overgrown, forgotten tracks, with no energy to call it back again.

_Like the wind that shakes the bough, he moves me with a smile..._

Paul had taken full advantage of the hot shower and was dressed in a silk dressing gown of Eric's, blue, with a rippling green dragon down the back; his damp hair up in a top-knot again. Humming, smelling of shampoo, he moved lazily around the room, picking up ornaments, pulling out records, lighting candles. Daryl looked away as the other man plonked himself down on the other end of the couch, relighting his joint.

Obviously his tolerance was a lot higher than Daryl's – not that there was any kind of competition going on, here. Daryl wanted to get up and make an excuse and head home, he did, but for now he had to deal with the fact that he was basically super-glued to his seat. Not just his brain, but his whole body, all the complicated nerve endings and the synapses in his brain were following along with the cracked, melancholy voice coming through the speakers. Something about the song made him think of Rick – _everything_ was makin' him think about Rick right now - and how Rick could ask him to move mountains and he'd do his damndest to try.

Walk through fire, even, if he had to.

'You like Billie Holiday ...?' Paul waved a hand lazily at the stereo.

'Not really into music, much...' It wasn't true - he knew what he liked when he heard it.

'Pity. Aaron and Eric have a killer record collection here - almost enough to make me reconsider going home to my cat. Here...' The other man held out the blunt and Daryl took it, polietly. It's what Merle would have done.

'Thanks, _Jesus_.'

'Call me Paul, please. The 'Jesus' thing is a joke. A stupid, worn-out joke I should have grown out of by now.'

'No shit....'

'Just curious, _Daryl Dixon_, but how the hell do you stand it here? All these safe, smug people who couldn't last a week in the real world, looking down their noses at you when you walk down the street? Hot showers notwithstanding, I'd need to smoke a hell of a lot more of _this_ just to get up in the morning, for one thing.'

Daryl wasn't as pissed off as he should have been. Perhaps it was the pot, or perhaps it was just a relief to have someone come straight out and ask about the shaggy, unwashed elephant hanging around awkwardly in the room.

'Carl and Judith need a roof over their heads, and it's safe, for now, so...' He trailed off.

_I say I'll care forever and I mean, forever_

_if I have to hold up the sky..._

'But they're Rick's kids, right?'

Their hands brushed, again. Daryl took a deep breath, blowing out the fragrant smoke slowly, telling himself this was his last. He had to get home.

'They're all of our kids, we all pitched in after their Momma died. Lori, her name was. Havin' Judith, back in Georgia...we were livin' like animals back then, it was no place for her to have a baby. We all kinda knew she wasn't gonna make it, but Rick. I dunno what was goin' on with him - he wouldn't talk about it, with her, or with anyone, he just clocked out. So in the end, it was just Carl there with her, on his own with Maggie, and he had to, y'know....'

He trailed off again.

'Oh God...'

'Yeah, the boy had to grow up faster than he should. He's a good kid though, good head on his shoulders. And Judith - I called her Lil' Asskicker when she was born, and it stuck. Suits her.'

'They've got Michonne now, though, I mean, she and Rick seem pretty tight?'

It was true. Rick had someone else at his side now, someone more than capable of watching over Lil' A, of being the friend Carl needed. Daryl could leave Alexandria, if he wanted to - not right away, but after winter, maybe, if they got through that.

'That's why you want to save those women? Because of what happened to Judith's Mom?'

Enough was enough. 'You don't know nothin' about me....'

Jesus sighed and tipped his head back against the couch. Daryl stared, fascinated, at the pulse beating at the base of his throat.

'You do know that being a good samaritan isn't a _bad_ thing, right?' He turned his big, freakish blue-green eyes on Daryl and somehow he couldn't look away. 'I know you're a good person, I know you love your family to the point you'd throw yourself off a cliff for them, and I know you're in love with your best friend, so...it's okay, I've been there too. But when two of your best friends are married, or _as good as_, and with kids – you've got to move on, that's all I'm saying. You're only going to get eaten up, from the inside out. And there's enough things trying to eat us up out there, as it is...'

'I ain't...I don't know what you mean, man, I'm not...'

'Whatever...' sighed Jesus, rolling his eyes.

'Maybe I _am_? But Rick....I've always known it wasn't going to happen. Just can't help my feelings, is all.'

'Oh.'

'Yeah.'

''Hmmm. And in the meantime, ' said Jesus thoughtfully. 'Here we are. Two people who will probably go their seperate ways in a few days and might never cross paths again...' He bit his lower lip, looking at Daryl like a lost puppy-dog who just needed a good home.

'Wanna fool around, is that what you're sayin'?'

It didn't sound like a joke, the way it had in his head. His heart sped up as Jesus put his roach out in the ashtray and moved in, his eyes questioning, his robe falling open. He licked his lips, staring hungrily at Daryl's mouth, and Daryl looked into his eyes, flashing helplessly back to the first time he'd seen him, at the waterfall.

That feeling of being hit between the eyes by a two-by-four. Or a silver bullet.

'Why not...?'

'I...uh..'

Daryl had had his share of random encounters. Girls - and even a few women who should've known better - had been throwing themselves at him since he was twelve, after all. The cute bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks who'd lost his Momma - he got it, and if he was in the mood he made the most of it - if they made it easy for him, that is, if he'd had enough to drink.

But that was the women. When it came to men, it was all about tracking them down, catching their eye; all that unspoken communication ending up in a back alley or out in the woods - getting it over with fast and hot and dirty before either of 'em could freak out or get caught.

But this? This was nothing like any of that. Daryl was totally thrown.

'Try me?' Without waiting for an answer, Paul brushed Daryl's hair out of his eyes, carding his fingers through the heavy, tangled mess. Electric tingles shimmered down Daryl's scalp, his neck, his shoulders - right to the ends of his fingers. Despite his mellow, drugged-out state, his dick finally got with the programme and an urgent stab of _want_ went down his spine.

All he could look at was Jesus' mouth, as a thumb brushed across his own chapped lips.

'What the hell...'

Jesus' beard was softer than he'd imagined. His mouth tasted of spices and beer and weed. He was gentle and insistent and in control, and Daryl's bones melted in pleasure as the other man moved in. He wanted Jesus' hands everywhere, even as his own rough, callused hands slid under warm silk to grab and stroke, and tease. It was almost too much. He slid the gown off the other man's shoulders and pushed it down to his waist, impatiently.

'Want you now. No games, man... I can't.'

'Mmmmm...I'm not playing games, trust me...' Jesus straddled him, settled his weight on Daryl's lap and he thought he was about to die, when he heard something.

'Wait...'

'What?' Jesus groaned, tipping his head back, showing his adam's apple, and Daryl had a real hard time pushing him off, after that. But he knew what he'd heard, he knew the sound of breaking glass, however muffled it might be. He pointed silently up the hallway to where Aaron and Eric had gone to bed.

Jesus shrugged his robe back on - eyes wide, but calculating. Least he's not arguing, thought Daryl numbly, as he picked up his bow and moved almost roboticaly down the hall, clocking a bolt into the shaft, loosening his knife. He didn't need to look back to know Jesus had gone for the Glock and bullets they'd swiped earlier.

He could hear bodies scuffling, thumping, from behind the closed door at the room in the end. Taking a deep breath, his heart in his shoes, he slammed the door open, flicking on the overhead light.

Beside the bed a shocked-looking Eric scrambled into his pants and on the floor Aaron, dressed in boxers and t-shirt, had his hands around the neck of a feral-looking dude. Young, wiry, but no match for Mr Not-So-Nice-Guy After All. The dark-haired guy's eyes were bulging, and a vein throbbed in his forehead next to the livid, scarred 'W'. Yellow, rotting teeth were bared in a last-gasp snarl.

'Let him go, he's mine! I deserve this!' Jesus shoved into the room and pointed his gun at the man's head. He wasn't going to shoot the intruder, though. He had other plans, they could all see that.

'Jesus is right, babe - we need him alive, we need intel...'

'_He was going to cut your throat_...' Aaron was having a hard time disengaging. He loosened his grip and sat up, as if only just noticing his surroundings. 'Daryl....Paul...?' He looked frantically at Eric, who nodded. He climbed off the intruder, now covered by Paul's revolver and Daryl's bow, grinning up at them as if the whole thing was one big sick inside joke.

'He almost took out both of us. While we were _sleeping_. In our _bed_.'

'_S_orry to break up your little Tupperware party,' smirked the young man, his eyes flicking to Daryl's crotch. 'Hope I wasn't interrupting anything.._.important_?'

A scream echoed from the street and there was a _whumpf_, followed by a deadly orange glare. More screams, more breaking glass, and a lot of shouting.

'It's them. They're here.' Eric's face was white as a sheet. 'The Wolves...'

'Get some clothes on, all of ya, we've gotta fight. C'mon, get dressed. Go with Jesus and get some weapons from the pantry – I'll tie this loser up, lock him in the basement....you can do what you like with him _later, _man, okay?'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Billie Holiday song is 'Crazy He Calls Me' which I fell in love with while playing Fallout.   
The perfect post-apocalyptic love song. You can hear it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SadX_yYa1c


	5. Chapter 5

Daryl was going to throw up. The man shackled to the workbench was younger than he looked, Sherry's age, maybe – rotten teeth, his hair a greasy, tangled mess, his body starved to the bone but tough as old boots. He would have been good-looking once and educated, too; going by the way he talked. Most likely a rich kid with a trust fund who never really appreciated it - probably been waiting his whole spoiled, pampered life for this - for the 'wolf' inside him to be allowed out to play. 

No, there was nothing salvageable here. Daryl knew a lost cause when he saw one.

'Might not believe this right now, but I'm about to do you a favor, asshole.'

'That right, Cleetus?' 

Daryl swallowed back bile. 'You don't want that hippy gettin' a hold of you while you're still alive, trust me. He's got a lifetime of payback to unload on the likes of you - even before we get to the whole 'mutilating his boyfriend' thing.' 

He pointed the bolt squarely at the centre of the 'W' in the man's forehead, bracing himself. Killing in cold blood had never come easy, but he'd come a long way since messing up Randall in the barn. He was a hunter; he understood that sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind.

'Uhh...sorry, I've been having a lot of blackouts lately - remind me again...?'

'How could you do that to a bunch of innocent people, for no reason? And how the fuck d'you live with yourself, after?' He didn't expect an answer – this animal wasn't going to share anything useful, just spin mindgames until he could see an opening and get the hell out of there. 'I ain't a monster like you, so I'm offerin' you a choice - I can kill ya clean, bolt between the eyes, like a dog with rabies. You won't feel a thing. Or I can hand you over for a little chat with Jesus. Your choice.'

The 'wolf' in front of him grinned, furry teeth bared in a final fuck-you. 'Well ain't you ever so cute, Cleetus! Nobody needs reasons anymore - all that 'human rights' crap got napalmed along with those civilians in those burned-out camps. We're all animals now - or hasn't anybody spelled that out to you yet?'

'That your final word on it?'

'Sorry, did you want to talk - Daryl, was it? I feel like we got off on the wrong foot here but you and me, we're both on the outside looking in - isn't that how it is? We both know we have to make our own rules, before someone else makes them for us –I mean, it's just a hunch, but I feel like we have a lot in common, you know what I mean?'

'Nah. We don't.' Daryl pulled the trigger. 

Outside it was chaos. Daryl saw Alexandrians, mostly in PJs and gowns, or nothing, fleeing from shadowy figures in rags and muffled faces who moved fast, armed with nothing but axes and machetes, leaving carnage in their wake. A couple of houses were on fire, and a barrage of gunfire came from the direction of the pantry. 

He rounded a corner and found Jesus surrounded by a circle of raggedy, feral-looking characters, all brandishing makeshift weapons – machetes, hatchets, pitchforks - but no actual firepower, far as he could tell. Daryl shot a couple in the head: thunk, thunk, giving Jesus his opening, 

A blur of fists, legs and boot heels followed, Paul punching his moves out too fast and too deadly for Daryl to follow. Blades flashed, and two more went down. The others scattered, running for the wall, but Daryl got them in the back. Next to him Jesus threw a knife, once, twice, and it was all over.

They ran to retrieve their bolts and knives and then faced each other in the flickering orange light, panting. Jesus looked exhilerated, his crazy, blown eyes sparking with adrenalin. 

'Cmon, we need to get to the Infirmary, in case they try to bust in there...'

But Rick and Michonne had the infirmary covered, Michonne swinging her katana and Rick layin' down the law with his Colt. It was like the old days again.

'Where's Carol?'

'Olivia's pantry!' yelled Rick. 'The gun safe! Back her up, Daryl, we got this!'

Ice in his veins, Daryl ran full-tilt to the pantry, but it was all over there, too. Carol dragged a stolen bandanna off the lower half of her face, swiping a smear of blood over her forehead. The floor was littered with bodies, all of them Wolves. 

'It's okay, you can come out now.'

Olivia emerged from the gun safe, shaken and wide-eyed, but unhurt. 

'Oh my God - who are these people? How did they find us? How the heck did they ever get in?'

'Good question,' said Jesus, grimly. 'Don't you people have watchers on the walls?' Snipers? And where's Aaron and Eric, anyway, I thought they were headed over here...'

'They're fine, they went to help Maggie and Glenn. But Abe and Sasha...?' Carol threw a loaded glance at Daryl. 'They were meant to be on the wall tonight...there's no way those two would have let something like this happen,' If they'd been alive to stop it, she didn't say. 'C'mon,' She tossed Olivia a hand gun. 'Stay here Olivia. If anyone comes in, just. I don't know - point and pull the trigger, okay?' 

Jesus and Daryl followed her to the gate and climbed up, already knowing what they were going to see. 

'I can't do this again. I can't...' 

Daryl grabbed Paul blindly to hold him up, reaching out with his other hand for Carol. On the spikes outside the gates were two heads, one freckled with red hair, one dark with tight curls, both with bleeding W's carved into their foreheads. Their eyes were wide open and their mouths were moving, mechanically. Like puppets.

Daryl doubled over. He knew the remainder of Abe and Sasha's bodies would be close by, and he knew they had to get to them before Rosita and Eugene did, but his stomach had other ideas. 

Feeling a hand rub his back, he managed to straighten up and wipe his mouth, in time to see Jesus running away, back toward Aaron and Eric's place. He didn't try to follow him.

'One of 'em broke into Aaron and Erics',' he explained shakily. Carol hardly seemed to hear him, breaking out a pack of Morleys from a pocket in her camo pants. She lit one with an unsteady hand, offering him the packet. 

'Not now, woman...and since when did you smoke?'

Carol shrugged. 'I found these on my neighbor, the one who was always going on about the pasta maker? And looking down at the mess they'd made of her I thought...well. Now is as good a time as any to start up a bad habit again, right?'

'Nah, it ain't. ' Daryl peered at his friend, who was clearly close to tears. 'You alright?' 

'Does any of this look alright to you? What was ...what was that about Aaron and Eric?'

'One of these 'W' assholes broke in their window and almost took them both out, but lucky for Aaron, he's been getting kung fu lessons from Jesus. By the time me and Jesus got to them, it was all over.'

'You and Jesus?' Carol looked at him curiously through a plume of smoke, her eyes narrowed. Daryl cursed himself, silently. 

'Never mind that, we gotta do the right thing for these two, before anyone else sees 'em. Rosita and Eugene, y'know? 'C'mon. Throw that away, we got work to do.'

It was one of the longest nights in his life, and he didn't get to bed until the sky was paling into dawn. They'd done what they could to get the dead ready for burial next day and the injured cared for as best they could. Given the nature of the injuries, there wasn't much they could do in some cases, except call in Father Gabriel. Daryl finally crawled up the stairs to his room as the sun came up, and fell like a dead-weight into bed.

The next day was more of the same. Jesus worked tirelessly with Aaron and Eric, digging graves and talking to the bereaved. Seemed some folks found his resemblance to Our Lord and Savior comforting, or maybe he just had a way with words, but to Daryl's surprise people seemed to flock to this very different Paul, the one with the gentle voice and philosophical outlook. 

Either way, he was very fucking obviously not talking to Daryl, who was doing his best himself to block out the events leading up to the attack. 

Hauling corpses and shoveling dirt out of six-foot deep holes helped with that, a bit.

After a lunch of whatever they could scrape together, Rick called a meeting in Deanna's lounge.

'Now, I know some of these assholes might've got away, over the walls. And I know some of you – Jesus in particular – some of you want to go after them, track them down.'

'We don't know how many more of them are out there, Rick,' said Glenn earnestly. 'This could have been a trial run, for all we know.'

'A disaster of a trial run, I'd say. These people, they've been out here too long, that's all it is. They're opportunists, scavengers, but they're not an organized threat. They got no reason to come back here, after what happened. And if they do, well, we're the ones with the guns, aren't we?' A murmur of approval went around the room. 'These 'Saviors', on the other hand – even though Sherry told me she killed their leader, this 'Negan' who had them all under his thumb – they still sound like a force to reckon with. They're the people we should be worried about now.'

'I have to agree with Rick,' said Deanna. 'The Saviors have lost their leader - their Manson, their Jim Jones, or whatever he meant to them - but they still have bases, communication lines, weapons, workers. They still need food and supplies, and from what we've heard, they prefer to plunder from other communities rather than work for themselves. I think we need to be worried about them. Very worried, in fact.'

'I don't question the level of threat they pose to us as a community, but I think the safest move is to do nothing,' Eric spoke up, his voice firm, his cheekbones flushing. 'By which I mean, we wait for the Saviors to come to us, show up at our gate, expecting us to roll over like all the other settlements did. We let them in, and when they're inside and off guard, we lock the gates and bring out the firepower. Something like the Trojan Horse. Use the element of surprise, because it might be the only advantage we have.'

There was a brief silence as everyone mulled this over. Alexandria had been hiding away and 'doing nothing' since Day One, after all. It seemed it was what they were best at.

'I'm not saying it's not a good idea,' Paul ran a hand through his long, tangled hair. 'But waiting for them to ring the doorbell – that could take months. Years, even...' Daryl forced himself to drag his eyes away from Rovia's mouth, follow the thread of what he was actually saying. 'We don't have time to play a long con, we need to take the initiative and start wrapping this up, before the winter sets in, preferably. We need a plan.'

'But this plan needs to include the Saviors not knowing about Alexandria,' put in Michonne. 'The longer we stay under their radar the better; we can't take them on yet.We need to be smart and keep the element of surprise, as Eric said.. Now, Dwight told us about these other feeder communities – Hilltop, the Kingdom - would this Hilltop help us, if someone went there and told them about us? The Kingdom? Could we send them some food, guns, medicine, without word getting out to the Saviors about where it came from?'

'Probably not,' said Dwight. 'Word would get out sooner or later, you can't risk that. If you want their help, I'm thinking you'll have to send a few people out and y'know - pretend you've just stumbled across them by accident. Infiltrate the community, win the trust of - what's his name, Gregory? And the other guy, the so-called 'King'. Get a feel for what the situation is, first, before you commit yourselves.'

'Hey fam, this is all real entertaining and all...' Tara had arrived late. Her face was pale under her tan, her voice gritty with exhaustion. 'But what food? What medicine? We don't need to be making new best friends right now, what we need is another doctor, a whole damn ICU, as a matter of fact. Denise is doing her best but she's worn out, she's overworked and freaking over all the stuff she doesn't know, y'know? I had to sneak sleeping pills into her tea right now just to calm her down, get her to take some rest. We've got people dying in there and we're running out of opiates, bandages, clamps, IV bags...'

'Tara's right,' said Glenn. 'Our own basic survival has to be our priority right now. I vote we send teams out in cars tomorrow, start tracking down every hospital, every medical centre we can find in the phone book...though what might be even better, what about an evac camp, or an army base? Something with actual medical personel and equipment, food stores, guns...?'

'Nah,' said Daryl, speaking up for the first time. 'We gone down that road before, man, back in Atlanta. Found a bunch of cops and a doctor holed up in Grady Memorial,' he explained, for the benefit of Deanna and Paul, who hadn't been there. 'But they were all goin' stir-crazy and they weren't about to share anythin' with us without a fight. Same'll go for any other med centre we come across. They'll either be run by assholes or looted and overrun with Walkers. Hospitals with med supplies are like the motherlode now, ain't no-one gonna just give that shit away.''

'To be fair, Daryl, King's County Hospital was deserted when I woke up in there. Mainly because the Army had shot everyone who could've turned, left 'em out in body bags...and God only knows how the hell I slept through it all...' Rick gave a shuddering laugh. 'My point is, there must be other places like that out there, deserted hospitals and camps, maybe with medicine and guns just lyin' around. Did you get an official list of all the evac camps, Deanna? The boys in charge must've clued you into that when they brought you here, right?'

Deanna stared down at her notes, in silence.

'Deanna?'

The older woman cleared her throat, looking sick, and Daryl felt a chill go down his spine, as if he already knew what was coming. 'Look, I know none of you want to hear this, and I sure as heck wasn't supposed to tell you about it, but....you aren't children. You've survived far more than anyone ever expected you to, and you deserve to know the truth. It's not my job to keep the Government's dirty secrets, and I want you to know that I fought this, as much as I could, for as long as I could, as soon as I heard about it, but...'

'What are you tryin' to tell us, Deanna?' said Maggie quietly.

'From what I understood, the evacuation centres were never meant to save anyone. The plan was to herd as many of the public as possible into these camps and then 'contain' the virus. With napalm, bombs, firing squads - whatever it took, take out as many potential Walkers as they could by whatever means necessary, if you understand what I'm saying?' 

Deanna turned to look them all in the eye, one by one. 'Whether the army followed through on that everywhere - I don't know - the chain of command probably broke down in places; maybe some service personnel had a last minute attack of conscience. So, yes. I don't know what exactly you'll find in those camps, but it probably won't be herds of Walkers. That was the whole point. 'Operation Cobalt', they called it - don't ask me why.'

There was a stunned silence as everyone in the room tried to digest what she'd just confessed to.

'You knew about this and you did nothing? You stayed here, behind walls, with your solar panels and your gun safe...and your doctor...telling us we just had to wait, that someone would come for us...and all the while...'

'It wasn't that simple, Aaron. I had my children to think about. My husband. The people who came to us, looking for help. I had to give everyone hope.'

'Leave Deanna alone,' said Maggie. 'It ain't easy keeping people from going crazy in a crazy situation - my Daddy coulda told you that, if he was still alive. Sometimes hearing the truth isn't what people need. Thanks for bein' honest with us, it can't have been easy.'

'It wasn't.' Deanna looked shaken. 'But please don't tell my boys. Or anyone else outside this room. They've lost Reg, they need a few illusions left to cling to, if they're going to survive this.'

'Well, that was sobering,' said Jesus, after a long silence. 'But it doesn't change the fact that we need to get out there, tomorrow morning, after we've slept. We need to pair people up in teams, divide up the weapons and the vehicles. I'll go find a phone book and make a list of possible sites – Dwight, are you able to help me with that? Rick, can you and Deanna pair people up?'

'Me and Jesus?' 

'It was his idea. He said you made a good team the other night.'

'What about me and Carol? We tracked down Beth in Atlanta, all the way to Grady.'

'No, I wanted to send her out with Glenn. He's a good scout, but he isn't a killer. He needs a badass like Carol to back him up, do the hard thing if they have to. Make sense?'

'Why not Glenn and Maggie, then?'

'Because she's pregnant...but aah, don't tell anybody just yet, they want to keep it to themselves for a bit...?' Rick rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing. 

Daryl felt like a bomb had just gone off in the near vicinity. Glenn and Maggie had wised up since he first met them on the farm, but they were still a couple of goofy, lovesick teenagers, as far as their TMI sex life was concerned.

'Now? I know they've been makin' like bunnies from day one, but he always said he was bein' careful...'

'These things happen,' said Rick, dryly. 'Mother Nature had her own ideas. Anyway, Glenn will feel a whole lot better if he knows she's safe, and I'll feel a lot better leaving Carl and Judith at home if I know she's there to back up Deanna. So, me and Michonne, then Dwight and Rosita – that could be interesting, but at least she won't take any shit from him, she can get to know him, find out what he's made of. The senator's sons can go out with Nicholas and Noah, we'll send 'em somewhere close by where they can't come to too much harm. And Aaron and Eric will be a team, obviously.' 

Rick tilted his head. Looking sharply at Daryl. Almost as if he was disappointed. 'What have you got against this 'Jesus', anyway? He seems like a good person, a smart leader – the people really like him, I can tell. And he's a kickass fighter. If he's survived up there on his own all this time and still has his sanity and a sense of humor – he's an asset to the community, don't you think?'

Daryl knew Rick well enough not to keep arguing, not when it was clear he'd made his mind up.

'Mmmhhh...I guess.'

'Good. It's settled then. Head over to Aaron's, he's set up there with some maps, marking out sites.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay - I have 2 or 3 more chapters of this, but no clues what happens after that, so... fair warning :)


	6. Chapter 6

Jesus sat at the kitchen table with Dwight, a yellow pencil tucked behind his ear, maps spread out in front of him. He glanced up briefly as Daryl entered, a perfectly normal, casual, oh-there-you-are glance, but Daryl thought he might have detected a glow in the man's cheeks. 

So they were going to forget it ever happened. Fine. Might make things less awkward if they were going to go on a road trip together...

'We need to stick to places within a safe radius that people can still make it back on foot if they run out of fuel, if the car breaks down, if someone gets injured. We can't be too ambitious, but we have to make every trip count. Deanna said there was an evac camp set up at this county fairground, here, so Rick and Michonne want to have a look at that.' Jesus stabbed at a point on the map with his pencil and Daryl leaned in, warily. 'Meanwhile, I thought we could head south, down the highway – look, there's an emergency medical center here, might cover all the bases if we're lucky, and a Walmart not far from it, says Dwight - they're always a good bet - and a small private hospital further south, if that doesn't pan out. Couple of days, tops. We'll take guns, but you should bring your crossbow along too, it's got that 'silent but deadly' thing going for it.'

'Okay.' Daryl gnawed on his lower lip. 'How 'bout I take my bike, and you take a truck, so we got room to haul the stuff back, but more options if one of them breaks down, runs out of fuel? Bike can get through road blocks a car can't. You know how to drive, right? Know how to ride a bike?'

'That's not a stupid idea,' said Dwight approvingly, looking to Jesus for confirmation. 

'Yes, Daryl - I know how to drive. And ride a bike.' Still not meeting his eyes, Jesus got up and began folding the map and gathering up his notes. 'Dwight's coming with us, by the way – Rosita's in no state to go out on the road, whatever she says. She was Abraham's partner, and she needs time to grieve. Dwight knows the area, he's been there before.'

'Thought you said the Saviors ain't been down our way yet?' Daryl glared at the shifty-looking stoner leaning his stupid pointy elbows on the back of his turned-around chair, chewing on a toothpick. 

'That was years before any of this, man. I moved around a lot, worked a lot of dead-end jobs. Spent a season in hell, working 12-hour shifts at a hospital, wheelin' bodies down to the morgue, fun stuff like that. Long story short, I know where they keep the good shit, okay? I'll make myself useful, don't worry.'

Perhaps it was the bone-dead exhaustion, but Daryl slept like a baby that night, in his room in the attic under the skylight, stars wheeling slowly overhead. He dreamed that he was hunting down a playful, jade-green dragon, of all things - swimming after it through warm, rippling water, sunlight filtering lazily down through the seaweed. 

He woke, feeling blissfully and mysteriously happy - to find Rovia standing over him, grinning from ear to ear. 

'Nice dream?' Clearly revved up and ready to go, Rovia wore a green leather coat, gloves and combat, a gray wool beanie, and a backpack on his back. 

'Was, till you showed up.' Daryl swiped drool off his chin and scrambled to his feet, throwing on the shirt he'd tossed on the floor when he fell into bed. He'd left his jeans on like he often did, just in case. 'What the hell time is it, did I sleep in?'

'After eight - everyone else has set out, but you looked so peaceful I convinced Dwight to leave you alone for a while. You can thank me later. The bike's strapped on the back of the pick up, so all we need now is for you to get dressed and grab your bow, and we're off.'

After checking his bike was strapped in safely, Daryl hauled himself up in the cab of the truck. Dwight wearing a trucker cap, of all the stupid things was at the wheel, drumming his long, bony fingers. Jesus shuffled over to make room and Daryl slammed the door shut, trying not to press up too hard into the other man's thigh. He would've been a hell of a lot more comfortable on the bike, but they had to conserve fuel for when they really needed it, he knew that.

'Right then, we're off,' said Jesus cheerfully, as Eugene hauled open the heavy gate, waving them through. 'I'd put some music on, if this clunky heap of shit actually had a CD player. Never mind, we can always play 'I Spy' if we get bored...or maybe a round of 'Kill, Bang or Marry,' you heard of that one, Daryl? 'Never Have I Ever,' – that's another good one, but that's more of a drinking game. We'll save that one till we loot a country club – there's one of those not too far from the hospital, you know. Might be a fun place to stay the night.'

'You hopped up on happy pills, or somethin'?' growled Daryl. Just the mention of 'country club' was enough to bring back ugly images he could never forget - the corpses dangling from the ceiling, the dead 'rich bitch' in her pearls, Beth wiping out a glass and pouring her sad little dose of peach schnapps...

A shudder went down his spine, probably not unnoticed by his fellow passenger.

'No, just happy to get out of that chicken coop, is all. Every mile we get further away from Alexandria, the happier I will be. Never mind, I can take a hint.'

'Thank the Lord for that,' drawled Dwight. 

The road was blanketed in dead leaves that swirled in their wake behind them. Forests on the hillsides were turning brilliant shades of red and yellow as they drove past farms with empty silos and fields of golden, rotting corn. Sinister flocks of black birds wheeled overhead, making surreal patterns against the sky. 

'Guess no-one's gonna be in the mood for Halloween this year,' said Dwight, out of nowhere. 'More'n' enough real-life ghosts and skeletons and scary monsters out there now. It's like we need a holiday where we can all take a day off - like 'Back to Normal Day' or somethin', right? Pretend for one day that everything's like it used to be.'

'Hah,' said Jesus. 'That might be really funny, Dwight, if it wasn't so...'

'Sad?'

'Yep.'

None of them felt like talking. They picked as many back roads as they could to avoid road blocks and for the most part they were lucky, only running into one decent-sized horde outside a convenience store. After less than an hour they were driving through industrial wasteland, all abandoned factories and vast car parks, but here at least there were plenty of chemical fires to keep the dead distracted. A heavy, toxic stink hung in the air prompting Jesus to pull out a bandanna from his pocket and tie it over his mouth. Dwight and Daryl followed his example and Dwight put his foot down.

Paul navigated him down a few more car-choked streets, to pull up in front of a building that labelled itself as an 'Drop-In Community Clinic'. They climbed out of the cab, more to stretch their legs than anything, since it was obvious from the smashed-in windows that this was a dead end.

'It was worth a try,' said Jesus philosophically. 'We should see if the safe room's been broken into, anyway – that's where they keep the good stuff.'

Bow cocked, Daryl stepped gingerly over crunching glass, past predictably empty shelves. 'Locked tight.There's no way in hell. But you can see where someone's had a go at it.' The door was heavily dented, as though someone had been going at it with a fire ax.

'Give me five minutes, max.' Jesus pulled a little leather pouch out of his pocket, fished out some lockpicks. 'This used to be kind of a hobby of mine, back in the day...'

'I'll go check out the break room,' sighed Dwight. 'Might be some breath mints, if we're lucky...'

Daryl leaned back against the counter to watch the hippy go to work, humming under his breath, fiddling and twiddling with one tool after another. To Daryl's annoyance, he did look like he knew what he was doing. Would've been an asset to any biker gang, mused Daryl, if they could get past the shit-talking, pain-in-the-ass, know-it-all factor, that is...

There was a triumphant 'click', and the door swung open.

'Bazinga! Let's see what we can see – got that backpack?'

'Here – I grabbed a few trash sacks too.' He stepped in to peer over Jesus' shoulder at the array of untouched drugs and medical supplies. 'This is like El Dorado, right? Wonder why they didn't take it all with 'em when they bugged out?'

'Because they didn't bug out.' Right at the back of the storeroom a couple of shriveled corpses dressed in white coats, but still identifiable as a man and a woman, were wound tight in each other's arms and surrounded by little brown bottles, one with a revolver in its hand. 'They locked themselves in.'

'Oh, hell.' 

'Yeah.' Jesus gave a deep sigh. 'Well, let's take as much as we can. Leave some, though, other people might need it and I think we can afford to be generous, don't you?'

'So the question now is, do we head home with what we've got, or risk going to that Walmart?' asked Dwight. 'We still need to find some food, and I'm fucking starving. Pardon my French.'

'It's like those game show quizzes, where you have to decide if you're going to take the hundred thousand or risk it all on the off-chance of winning a million dollars,' said Jesus, helpfully. 'The Price is Right', right, or whatever it was?'

'I vote we head home.' Daryl had had enough of both of them for one day. 'Those injured people Denise is lookin' after aren't gonna wait around for us to finish our goddamned picnic lunch. The other's'll probably find some food out there, somewhere, anyway.'

'You're right.' said Jesus, reluctantly. 'I was looking forward to looting the camping supplies, though. Like you said, I need to stock up for the winter. Maybe next time.'

'Gonna take the bike, then, if we don't need to worry about saving fuel. She needs a run to blow the cobwebs off. Think I'll take that back road up over the mountain, give her a workout...' 

Without asking for further permission, Daryl jumped up on the flat bed and began untying the bike. Paul didn't know what had gotten into him but suddenly he couldn't help himself. 'Can I come too?'

'Hell NO.' Daryl wheeled the bike down and stood over it protectively, hands clutching the handlebars as if Paul was planning to kidnap it. 'Nobody rides my bike but me.'

'Please?' He pulled out his best time-honored puppy-dog impression - kind of like he had the night before, when he really hadn't expected it to work. It brought on a fierce, confused blush that traveled all the way down the other man's neck and up to the tips of his ears. 

Interesting. 

'Come on? It's been years since I've been on a bike – and I need to blow some cobwebs off, myself.'

'Nah, man, you need to stay with Dwight, make sure he don't do anything shady.'

It was Dwight's turn to look pole-axed. 'What kind of snake in the grass douchebag do you think I am? You really think I'm gonna put my wife and her sister at risk just to - what? Drop some oxy off to the Saviors, after what they did to us? 

'Remind me of a snake in the grass douchebag I used to know, is all,' mumbled Daryl. 'Makes it kinda hard to trust you at times - nothin' personal, man.'

'Good to know where we stand, then,' said Dwight, with dignity. 'I appreciate the emotional transparency, but...'

'There wouldn't be any drugs if I hadn't generously shared my lifetime of B & E expertise with the group,' put in Paul reasonably. 'I think a bike trip is the least you owe me? Come on, enough bitching and moaning. I'll take the backpack with me so if we get separated and anything happens, at least we don't have all our eggs in one basket.'

'What?' 

'It makes sense, doesn't it? We might be safer taking the back road, or we might not. Either way, at least one lot of meds will get through, along with the directions on where to go to find more. And like I said, you owe me. Not just for the lock-picking, but you kind of stole my thunder the other night, with that mercy-killing - or whatever it was. Do you really want to hash all that out now in front of Dwight, or should we just get going?'

'Whatever.' Daryl actually rolled his eyes. 'But you're right, we owe you big time, so I guess...if the price is right...'

'Thanks.'


	7. Chapter 7

They watched the pick up rumble off down the highway.

'Get on, then.'

Daryl swung a leg over and gunned the engine while Paul settled himself behind, the backpack on his back. He put his hands around Daryl's waist, knowing perfectly that wasn't biker protocol, but it had been awhile since he'd rode on the back of one of these things. Anyhow, it felt good to have his hands around Daryl again. The other man said nothing, kicking the bike into gear and roaring off in the opposite direction from Dwight, toward a turn off they'd passed a little while back.

The sealed road zigzagged uphill through pine forest, spectacular vistas coming into sight and disappearing again through the trees as they climbed higher up the mountain. The crisp air blew his hair back behind, and he clung on tighter to keep his balance. He turned to take in the view, every single cobweb inside his head left far behind in the dust.

This was _amazing_, he thought, this was what he'd needed, all along. Exhilerated, he leaned with Daryl into a sharp bend, their bodies moving in perfect synchrony. He was going to get himself a bike, that was what he was going to do. A Triumph, maybe, with a little sidecar for his cat...

'Havin' fun?' shouted Daryl into the wind.

'This is amazing! Thank you!' Daryl turned his head and Paul thought he saw the ghost of a grin. And that was another goal for the future, he thought – make Daryl Dixon smile for real, sometime. Make him laugh, even...

Without any warning at all, Daryl took a sharp bend and pulled the bike around to a screeching halt.

Jerked violently back and sideways, Paul tumbled off into gravel on the side of the road, only remembering to roll at the very last moment. His leather coat took most of the impact on his elbows, but the backpack flew open, sending little brown bottles and little white boxes everywhere.

'What the fuck?' He scrambled to retrieve the bottles and froze, finally seeing what Daryl had seen – a group of leather-clad men with bikes, apparently taking a break at a rest stop just up the road.

'Oh hell.'

'Saviors,' muttered Daryl. 'They're armed and they seen us, and the drugs, so no point runnin' away. We're just two badasses travelin' together who broke into a pharmacy, got it? Maybe we can make new friends, like Dwight said...know what I mean?'

'Got it.' Paul shoved the last of the meds into the bag and followed Daryl up the road, keeping his hands in the air like his. The bikers faced them, enough of them pointing enough firearms so that the obvious leader of the group – a big guy with a bushy red beard, sporting a Confederate flag t-shirt – didn't even need to break into a sweat.

Then to Paul's confusion, the big guy broke out laughing - an honest to goodness, deep-down belly laugh.

'Well fuck me sideways - if it ain't Baby Blue Dixon! How the everlovin' _hell_ did you make it all the way up here? And where's that crazy motherfucker of a big brother of yers?'

'Rufus, my man! How the hell are you still alive, you big dumb fuck?'

'Great to see you too, brother!' The two men embraced, trading hearty back slaps on leather. To Paul's immense relief, the goons lowered their weapons, grinning broadly at each other.

'Hey, Rufus - I'd like ya to meet my new best friend...'

'Paul Monroe,' said Paul, picking his birth name for a change. 'But my friends like to call me 'Jesus'. Your pick.' He did the little bow, arms spread wide. Once again, Rufus burst out in a belly laugh. The man was not hard to amuse.

'Ha! Looks the spittin' image of Bible Jesus, too, don't he? Don't act like him though, I'll bet!'

'You got it. Might not look it, but he's a tough son of a bitch – knows kung fu and all kinds've martial arts shit...kicks ass on the dead like Bruce Lee, I'm telling ya. Lock-pickin' ninja, too. Got all those meds you saw spilled out of the backpack back there...locked up like Fort Knox in a _safe_ but that weren't no problem for Jesus.'

'No shit?'

'Mmmhmm. Saved my life back there, after I lost Merle. Saved my life a few times, tell ya the truth.' Daryl took a deep breath, swiping a strategic wrist over his nose.

'Aw, man! What happened, Blue? If anyone was built to survive this shit, it was your brother.'

'We all gotta go sometime, Rufus.'

'Can't argue with that!'

'Least he went out doin' what he loved though, right? We broke into this country club, see, and ol' Merle found this whole bar full of top shelf liquor that ain't even been touched yet...'

'Always had the luck of the devil, that crazy mother...'

'Yeah, but even the devil's luck's gotta run out sometime, right? So, 'course we got shitfaced, which was stupid, but what else are ya gonna do? And then we went on a little tour and man, was that place fucked up. We found all these teenage girls, in their fancy dresses, all locked up in the ballroom...all of 'em...all of 'em turned into those...things...' Daryl swiped a hand over his eyes, brushing away actual tears this time, his voice wobbling. 'Didn't end well for Merle, Rufus. I had to...ya know. Had to put him to rest.'

Rufus enveloped him in a huge hug. 'Hey, we've all been there, ain't we? Rest in peace, Merle, you crazy bastard. Ya still owe me for that bag of crystal blue ya ripped me off - not you, Daryl, you ain't your brother's keeper.' He turned to Paul. 'So - this hippy saved your ass a few times, that right?'

'Story for another day,' said Paul, diplomatically. 'Nice to meet you, Rufus. You guys have a camp around here somewhere?'

It turned out they came from a base on the other side of the mountain, and were heading over to a place called Hilltop. Apparently a guy called Simon had taken over leadership of the Saviors, and he'd also taken over the 'feeder community' of Hilltop as his main base, to go with his new-found status.

'Hilltop', from what Paul had already gathered from Dwight, was a big, old fashioned plantation house that had been converted into a living museum, with a blacksmith, brewery, livestock, vege gardens, the works. Prime real estate in the apocalypse, in other words.

From what he could make out, this Simon had recently established his leadership of both the Saviors and Hilltop by bashing the erstwhile leader of Hilltop, Gregory, to death with a barbed-wire baseball bat, in front of all the assembled residents. After that, he promised to deal out the same punishment to anyone else who stepped out of line, and moved in to the main house, along with an elite cohort of the Saviors.

And this was where Rufus was taking them. Fantastic.

'We gotta report to Simon, and we ain't found anything interesting to bring him yet. But you two and your bag of drugs look pretty interesting to me, know what I mean? You used to be a deer hunter back in the day, didn't ya, Dixon? Weren't your daddy famous for makin' moonshine? And a lock-pickin' ninja always comes in handy round the place. So - I'd say this is your lucky day, boys, don't ya think? Feel like joining the crew?'

'I need a minute,' muttered Paul urgently. He had a plan - not a very good one, but it would have to do. 'Nature calls.'

Crouching behind a tree he pulled out a slip of notepaper and a pencil stub from one of the concealed pockets in his coat and drew a childlike drawing of a hilltop with a cross and a smiley-faced Jesus on it. He folded it up and shoved it in a novelty matchbox, then dropped the matchbox casually in the middle of the road as he walked back to join Daryl.

He stashed his bandanna in a back pocket where it could also be jettisoned easily - on the back of a bike, at a strategic turnoff, perhaps. Dwight would see the marks where Daryl's bike had skidded, the Saviors' cigarette butts, the little collectable matchbox and a bit further on, the bandanna.

Dwight wasn't stupid, he would put it all together...hopefully.

'Right then. Let's do this.'

'Sorry, not so fast, we gotta take your weapons off ya for now. You'll get them back, I promise.'

'I _better_ get 'em back,' growled Daryl, handing over his bow. 'Anything happens to that, or my bike, and I'm takin' it out on your ass, Rufus. And ya know how sneaky I can be, when I wanna be.'

'Roger that.'

The convoy of bikes made its way up over the mountain and through a pass, then down the other side where they rumbled along a red-dirt country road and pulled up outside a frontier-style blockade wall made of pointy, sharpened logs - a big, locked gate in the middle. It wouldn't have been out of place in the Dark Ages, even down to the spear-carrying guards glowering down at them from above. One of the guards waved his hand and the gate swung majestically open.

'Wow.' Jesus was impressed. He could see exactly why this Simon would want to move in on the place, and what a crying shame it was that Alexandria hadn't got here first...

They cruised slowly past a blacksmith shed, a pottery, a carpenter's workshop – all turning out practical, useable gear, as far as he could see. A couple of horses with tooled leather saddles reared up in alarm as they passed, and a small flock of sheep went into a panic. Dominating the scene was a big three-storied, gabled brick house, rows of windows shining in the sun.

Barrington House, Dwight had called it.

They pulled over and dismounted, Rufus yelling orders at some locals to take the bikes over to the mechanic to refuel, then put them under cover.

''Cmon, let's go see the big man.'

Simon was waiting for them in a magnificent study, all antique furniture and leather-bound books, turkish carpets and gold-framed paintings. A particularly impressive portrait of a 17th century general on a beautiful white horse hung above the fireplace. Used beeswax candles were everywhere – in sconces on the walls and candelabra on every available surface - suggesting these people didn't have much of a working power supply, if any.

Simon himself lounged back in a richly carved chair with his boots on the desk in front of him. Tall, well-built, he sported an 80's handlebar moustache and a smile that could only be described as shark-like.

'Rufus, my good man! You're on time for once! To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?'

'Brought you somethin' interesting, Boss, just like I promised.'

'You did?'

'More like a couple of someones, Boss, and _this_. They had a big bag of meds with 'em, thought your Doc might be able to use it.'

'And you thought right, Rufus.' Simon reached for the bag and peered inside. 'I think I'll deliver it to Harlan in person though, just to make sure none of it goes missing. No offense. And who are these sorry-looking fucks?'

Rufus dragged Daryl in front of the desk. Paul watched the shark's eyes light up with barely-concealed interest as he swept his eyes over the broad shoulders, the leather vest, the cocky tilt of Daryl's hips.

'And you are?'

'Name's Dixon – me and my brother used to ride with Rufus back in the day, with the Heaven's Devils, down in Georgia - might've heard of us?'

'Not really, but go on...?'

'Been making my way North, is all, lookin' for somewhere to hole up for the winter. This place ain't bad, man. You need a deer hunter maybe, need to get some pork salted in before the snows start? Can set ya up a still, too, if you ain't got one already.'

Simon raised his eyebrows suggestively. '_Well_ now, and how could I turn down a tasty offer like that? As a matter of fact, we do have a still out back somewhere, but no-one has a goddamned clue what to do with it. I'm a gin man, myself, and we have an old-timey brewery, but I can't deny that some downhome white lightning would go a long way to keep the troops happy. I have no tolerance for anything stronger, though – just warning you now. Any hint of drugs not being used in a medicinal capacity and I will come down on the perpetrators like the wrath of God. We Saviors - we work hard and we _play by the rules_! Got that?'

'Got it, sir.'

''Sir.'? I like.' Simon waggled his eyebrows, grinning his Cheshire Cat grin. 'As Rufus may have informed you, I was recently elevated from the status of Right Hand Man to that of Supreme and Fearless Leader, after the unfortunate demise of our previous Supreme Leader, following a mysterious incident involving a disappearing wife and a bag of insulin. What I'm saying is, there's a vacancy for the role of my own Right Hand Man, and I'm looking out for suitable candidates as we speak. Being something of an insufferable motor mouth myself, I prefer the strong, capable, silent types.'

'That right?' purred Daryl, an almost predatory tone in his voice that Paul hadn't heard before. He had an idea what was going on now, but it didn't help his blood pressure that Daryl was pulling it off so smoothly.

'And your friend is?' Simon's green eyes were glacial. He knew a threat when he saw one.

'Paul Monroe.' Paul drew a line at 'Sir'. Spinning tall tales with this garter snake of a man was a waste of time, he could see that, but he hadn't been left with much choice. 'Dixon and I met up on the road a few weeks ago and we decided to combine our skill sets, so to speak. We've been traveling together on the bike, looting what we can, living the good life. But winter's coming on, like he said so, yeah. I wouldn't mind staying too, if you'll have me.'

'Well. That depends, doesn't it? What exactly have you got to offer me, Marilyn? This isn't a five star hotel, even if it looks like one – we can't take in waifs and strays out of the goodness of our hearts. So tell me, what category do you fall into – waif, or stray?'

Don't engage, thought Paul. Don't...just, _don't_....'Well, I was a professional burglar back in the day, and I know my way around a lockpick – I can break into any gun safe or pharmacy you point me at. Among other things.'

'Can you, now?'

'You have something specific in mind?'

'There's a safe upstairs in my room. I suspect it contains Gregory's private stash of porn and 20 year old malt whisky, but that has yet to be confirmed - another one in the admin office, where they used to count up the takings, but that's probably just so much useless coin of the realm.' Simon swept his boots off the desk and rose to his feet, making a debonair bow. 'Shall we adjourn upstairs, gentlemen? Not you, Rufus. Go get these boys' weapons and put them in the Rose Room. Dixon can sleep in there.'

'The Rose Room, Boss? But...ain't that..?'

'I don't think he's the kind to be afraid of a little girl's ghost, are you Dixon?'

'Nah!' snorted Daryl, a little too forcefully.

'You can read all about it in the tour guide...if you really want to.' Simon led them out into the wide entrance hall and up a sweeping marble staircase, past more gold-framed oil paintings. 'Nothing to lose sleep over - just a dumb rich bitch who cut her wrists when Daddy wouldn't let her run away with the hired man - wakes people up by singing at them in the middle of the night - sounds more annoying than terrifying to _me_ – but every place like this had to have a corny ghost story to bring in the punters, right?'

'Right...' Daryl gnawed on his lower lip, looking distinctly sickly and nervous under the fake bravado, and Paul decided to ask about his ghosts sometime.

Actually, if they survived this together and got out alive, there were many, many questions he intended to ask the enigmatic Mr Dixon.

Gregory's safe turned out to be disappointingly entry-level, but he hammed it up, even swiping sweat off his brow to exaggerate the level of challenge. Might as well make the man feel he was getting his money's worth. As Simon had predicted, it turned out to be stuffed full of untouched bottles of top-shelf whisky, along with some questionable porn which Simon set a ceremonial match to in the fireplace.

Then he offered them all a drink, complete with a toast: 'To Gregory - long may you linger in the back alleys of hell, making friends with all the best people, you slimy, self-centered piece of...sorry, but some people just get on your _last nerve_, you know what I mean?'

Paul did. 'To Gregory...'

Whisky in hand, their new boss gave them a little guided tour of the second floor, explaining the provenance of the paintings on the walls and various other priceless collectables. Literally priceless now, mused Paul, given that the bottom had pretty much fallen out of the antiques trade.

'And this is the famous Rose Room.' Simon's heavy boot heels clomped across the floorboards as he pushed open a creaking, polished oak door. 'Enter if you dare, my friends...'

Paul had to bite his lip at the sight of Daryl's new bedroom – the wallpaper was adorned with blushing roses and a portrait of a dewy, Civil War era blonde was mounted in yet another gold-leaf frame. The bed with its ruffles and canopy was all pink and white brocade, set off with what looked like a genuine Colonial-era quilt, and big, puffed up white pillows. Adorable. Simon swept back the rose-pink velvet curtains and clouds of dust swirled in the sudden shafts of sunlight.

'Great view from up here, boys – can see clear over to the Blue Ridge Mountains from this side of the house – 360-degree visibility from up in the attic, with all those windows – it's a damn sight more comfortable than that fucking piss factory Negan had us cooped up in. Can't move all the troops in here, of course, just a very select few. Consider yourselves lucky.'

'What happened to the mirror?' Paul pointed to a smashed panel above an antique, cherry-wood dresser. Decorated with little glass bottles, dried flowers and a silver-backed hairbrush, it looked like another of the few authentic things left in the room. A few pieces of mirror glass were missing, he noticed.

'Why, that's the very same mirror she used to do the deed, of course! If you light a candle at midnight and sit down in front of it to brush out your pretty brown hair, she just might show up and scare the shit outta ya. Wouldn't want to risk it.' He grinned the shark grin again, over the rim of his glass.

Paul just caught Daryl's shattered expression in the mirror before he turned away to take in the view.

'Of course. How stupid of me.'

'Don't worry, you won't be staying in here. Thanks, Rufus, just put it all down on the bed.' Rufus had showed up with the crossbow and their knives, peering warily around the door. 'I'll take you on a little tour with me when I drop in to see Harlan - I think we might be able to fit you in above the stable. You can keep the cows and horses entertained, singin' 'Kumbaya' and telling 'em cute little bedtime stories - sound like your kind of thing?'

'Hah...' Paul curled his gloved hands into fists and followed Simon out of the door, reminding himself that the man was only walking around because he had decided to allow it.

For now.


End file.
